title: The epidemiology and clinical findings of colorectal cancer in Iran.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  This study was performed to evaluate the prevalence, clinical features and management of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) in Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  All cases of CRC presented to a principal referral University hospital (SGH) for cancers in Teheran, Iran between June 20, 2000 and January 3, 2003 were retrospectively reviewed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  A total of 200 patients were included. 114 patients (57%) were male and 86 were female (43%). Age ranged from 13-90 years with a mean of 55.15 +/- 14.5. Among these patients, 16.5% were less than 40 years of age. The tumors were categorized according to their distribution as appendix (n=4), cecum ( n=7), right colon (n=1), hepatic flexure (n=2), transverse colon (n=19), splenic flexure (n=3), left colon (n=6), sigmoid ( n=16), rectum (n=117), rectosigmoid and rectal lesions (n=16), and colorectal lesions without known locations (n=9). Non-mucinous adenocarcinoma (AC) was the most common histological type (n=181, 90%), followed by mucinous AC (n=15), squamous cell carcinoma (n=1), carcinoid (n=1), melanoma (n=1) and signet ring carcinoma (n=1). The most common presenting symptom was rectal bleeding (n=68, 34.5%). Younger patients had a greater preponderance of mucinous AC (p=0.008) and generally underwent more extensive chemotherapy as seen with more usage of 5-Fluorouracil (p=0.05).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We have had few reports with reference to the epidemiology of CRC in Iran since 1977. The current data suggest a younger age distribution for CRC. We found no significant difference between age, gender and type of cancer with subsite distribution. Distal CRC was more prevalent. Among patients, 30.5% were diagnosed by screening studies.
authors: Department of Physiology and Pathophysiology, University of Heidelberg, Germany. P.Samareh_Pahlavan@med.uni-heidelberg.de
authors: Payam S
authors: PS
authors: Pahlavan
authors: Rani
authors: R
authors: Kanthan