Introduction: As the population ages, the prevalence of chronic diseases is increasing. We evaluated trends in the prevalence of hospital-diagnosed chronic diseases in newly diagnosed colorectal cancer (CRC) patients.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of incident stage I-IV CRC patients diagnosed during 2002-2021, using Danish health registries. We assessed hospital-diagnosed chronic diseases at the time of CRC diagnosis, using Charlson Comorbidity Index scores, supplemented with psychiatric diagnoses. We calculated annual prevalence, absolute prevalence differences (PDs), and trends with average annual percentage changes (AAPCs) with associated 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) for one or more hospital-diagnosed chronic diseases. Analyses were stratified by age, stage, cancer location, sex, surgical approach, surgical urgency, screening status, and neoadjuvant treatment.
Results: Among 76,198 patients with CRC, median age was 72 years (interquartile range, 64-79 years). The prevalence of patients with one or more hospital-diagnosed chronic diseases increased over the study period, rising from 36% in 2002 to 51% in 2021, corresponding to a PD of 15.6 (95% CI, 13.2 to 18.1) and an AAPC of 1.9% (95% CI, 1.6% to 2.2%). Cardiopulmonary diseases were the most common category of hospital-diagnosed chronic diseases, affecting 25% of the cohort. The highest increase in prevalence was seen for metabolic diseases, which rose from 8% during 2002-2008 to 12% during 2015-2021 (PD 8.7 [95% CI, 7.1 to 10.2], and AAPC: 0.5% [95% CI, 0.4% to 0.5%]).
Conclusion: The prevalence of hospital-diagnosed chronic diseases among stage I-IV CRC patients has increased over the past two decades.
Keywords: chronic diseases; colorectal cancer; prevalence; registry‐based; trends.
© 2026 The Author(s). Cancer Medicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.