CRC Overview

An overwhelming majority of colorectal cancer patients worldwide are diagnosed via the clinical route. Screening programmes are not implemented in all countries, compliance rates are far from complete, and the screening test itself is likely not to be fully sensitive. The aim of this book is therefore to target the searchlight, not on screening but on the important and difficult task of diagnosing colorectal cancer in symptomatic patients.

As there are minimal sex differences in the data from routes to diagnosis to survival, the higher mortality of colorectal cancer in men appears to be a result of exogenous and/or endogenous factors pre-diagnosis that lead to higher incidence rates. There are however, sex and gender differences that suggest more targeted interventions may facilitate prevention and earlier diagnosis in both men and women.