Introduction: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer globally. This study aimed to determine the incidence, mortality, and survival rates of CRC in northern Malaysia over the last decade.
Materials and methods: This was a registry-based, cross-sectional study. All the CRC patients seeking treatment from any of the 21 hospitals located in northern Malaysia between 2008 and 2017 were included in this study. Both the incidence and mortality rates were expressed as the number of cases per 100,000. The time series analysis was performed to assess the changes in the age-standardized incidence and mortality rates (ASIR and ASMR) of CRC, while the Cox regression analysis was used to detect the differences in the mortality risk between subgroups of CRC patients.
Results: Of the 5746 CRC patients identified, approximately 40% were diagnosed only at Stages III and IV of the disease. Although the ASIR of CRC was stable and narrowly ranged from 17.03 to 20.01 per 100,000 (P = 0.775), the ASMR of CRC significantly reduced from 12.73 per 100,000 in 2008 to 2.99 per 100,000 in 2017 (P < 0.001). Besides increasing with age and the severity of the disease, the mortality risk was significantly higher in men (adjusted hazard ratio [HR]: 1.18; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02, 1.17) and the Malay ethnic group (adjusted HR: 1.33; 95% CI, 1.08, 1.64).
Conclusion: While efforts had been made to promote the timely treatment of CRC, it is encouraging to note a downtrend in its mortality rate. However, there is still a need to upscale the CRC screening going forward.
Keywords: Colorectal cancer; Malaysia; incidence; mortality; survival.