title: Major postoperative complications and survival for colon cancer elderly patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Increased life expectancy has led to elevating the mean age of the patients at the time of diagnosis of colon cancer and subsequent treatment. Differences in complication rates and outcome between elderly and younger patients have been investigated.
  
  
  METHODS
  We retrospectively analysed a database containing the information of patients who underwent surgery for stage I-III colorectal cancer from January 2004 to January 2012 at our institution and compared demographic, cancer-related, and outcomes data of 235 elderly patients with 211 patients ≤ 65 years old.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Intraoperative complications did not differ between young and old patients whereas some differences have been found in postoperative and late complications: elderly patients suffered more by ileus (P = 0.024), peritonitis or septic shock (P = 0.017), pelvic abscess (P = 0.028), wound infection (P = 0.031), and incisional/port herniation (P = 0.012) compared with younger patients. Moreover, elderly patients suffered by systemic complications such as cardiovascular (4.7% vs. 1.4%, P = 0.049), renal (4.7% vs. 0.5%, P = 0.006), and respiratory (10.6% vs. 5.2%, P = 0.036). The multivariate analysis assessing the odds of having a complication revealed that older age (Odd Ratio [OR] 2.75, 95% Confidential Interval [CI]: 1.67-4.52) and open surgery (OR 1.63, 95% CI: 1.01-2.62) are significantly and independently associated with having a complication.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In our series, elderly patients have presented a slight higher incidence of comorbidities that may affect the incidence rates of postoperative complications. These results have implications in increasing the hospital stay as well as a higher rate of death.
authors.affiliation: Department G F Ingrassia Section of Hygiene and Public Health, University of Catania, Via Santa Sofia 82, 95123 Catania, Italy.
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Grosso
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Biondi
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Marventano
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mistretta
authors.forename: Giorgio
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Calabrese
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Basile
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D003082:Colectomy / Q000379:methods / Q000401:mortality; D015179:Colorectal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010535:Laparoscopy / Q000401:mortality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D016017:Odds Ratio; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D015996:Survival Rate; D016896:Treatment Outcome