What is the Colon Cancer Recurrence Rate?

The number of people diagnosed with colon cancer is increasing in the western world and the colon cancer recurrence rate tends to be quite high. Some types of colon cancer are more likely to recur than others.

Colon cancer, sometimes referred to as bowel cancer or colorectal cancer, starts in the lining of the colon or large intestine. If left untreated, it can pass through the intestine walls to affect the outside of the colon walls and then spread throughout the abdominal cavity and beyond.

The current statistics report that about 23% of colon cancer patients will have a recurrence within five years from the date they were diagnosed. There are also studies that have found that the recurrence rate is anywhere between 4% and 55%, which is a very wide range. Statistics are often several years old, and the actual recurrence rate could be very different in actuality.

With most cancers, statistics are subject to a range of variables, and this is also the case with colon cancer recurrence statistics. The size and location of the original tumor is a determining factor in calculating the likelihood of the cancer returning. One study showed that if the tumor was less than three centimeters when first diagnosed, the expected rate of recurrence would be 11%. For tumors that were bigger than three centimeters when diagnosed, the rate of recurrence jumps to 28%.

Another variable is the stage of the colon cancer when it was diagnosed. The stages of cancer refers to how advanced it is when originally diagnosed. Stage 1 cancer refers to a localized tumor and stage 4 is a metastatic tumor, meaning that it has spread or metastasized to other bodily organs. As far as recurrence rates are concerned, patients diagnosed with a stage 1 cancer have a 10% possibility of the cancer recurring. A patient with a stage 3 cancer at diagnosis has a much greater recurrence risk, 41% in fact.

The hospital in which a patient was initially treated has also been shown to be a variable when looking at the recurrence rates of colon cancer. In a Norwegian study of 3,400 patients with colorectal cancer, those who were treated at hospitals where more than thirty colorectal operations were performed annually, have less chance of a recurrence than those operated on at a hospital that only performed ten such surgeries a year.

Recent studies have focused on the diet of colon cancer patients and how their diet affected the rate of recurrence of their cancer. The study involved more than one thousand patients, who had been diagnosed with stage three colon cancer and treated with surgery and chemotherapy. Two main diet types were studied; the first was a typical western diet that was high in red meat, fat and sugar, refined grains and processed foods. The second diet was called the 'prudent' diet, and was high in plentiful amounts of fruit, a wide variety of vegetables, fish and poultry.

The results showed clearly that the more nutritionally-sound diet of a variety of fresh produce, lean protein and whole grains had a lower recurrence rate than those who ate the worst of the western diet foods. In fact, those who ate the most western foods were 3.25 times more likely to have their cancer return. The western diet, high in fat and processed foods, increases the risk of colon cancer recurrence significantly.