title: Emergency admission for surgery predicts disease progression during adjuvant 5-Fluouracil (5-FU)-based chemotherapy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the prognostic significance of a number of variables in patients that receive adjuvant chemotherapy for colorectal cancer.
  
  
  METHODS
  We reviewed the Cancer Centre records of 194 patients who received adjuvant chemotherapy following potentially curative resection of Dukes' B or C colorectal cancer. Eight variables were examined to determine which factor(s) predicted disease progression during the 6-month chemotherapy period.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Admission for emergency resection (due to bowel obstruction or perforation) rather than elective resection, and a poorly differentiated tumour rather than moderately/well differentiated were independent significant factors in predicting disease progression (P < 0.001 and P=0.011, respectively). However, sex, age, Dukes' stage, number of involved lymph nodes, delays in starting chemotherapy and compliance with chemotherapy regime had no significant effect on 6-month tumour progression.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These preliminary findings confirm data which suggest that emergency admission patients may suffer from intrinsically more aggressive disease than the average population with colorectal cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Surgery, North Manchester General Hospital, Manchester, UK, Director of Cancer Services, Maidstone Hospital, Maidstone, UK.
authors.lastname: Hayman
authors.lastname: James