The importance of population-based cancer registry to identify the cases of gynecologic cancer related with the colorectal cancer in population at risk

Abstract

The population-based cancer registry is an important source of cases for cancer epidemiology and prevention studies. Colorectal cancer is the second cause of death from cancer in women in the United States. Weinberg et al,8 through the study of 101,734 cases of endometrial, cervical and ovarian cancers registered in the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) demonstrated the relative risk (RR) increase of colorectal cancers, following ovarian (RR = 3,7) and endometrial (RR = 3,4) cancer. The population-based cancer registry of Campinas - São Paulo, based on 6,539 recorded cases of incident malignant neoplasms in the area between 1991 and 1995, used a methodologe similar to the one used in the above-mentioned study to identify the cases of gynecologic cancer related to colorectal cancer, and collected 810 cases of women with diagnosis of cervical (265), endometrial (178), ovarian (97) and colorectal (270) cancer. In this study the mean age of patients with cervical cancer was 53.6; endometrial, 62.2; ovarian, 53.9 and colorectal, 61.9 years. After comparison of all selected cases, two patients were identified and four cancer cases associated to endometrial and colorectal cancer were described. It is possible that genetic or hormonal factors are responsible for the emergence of intestinal and extra-intestinal neoplasms, especially endometrial and ovarian. It is necessary to emphasize the importance of effective surveillance of this neoplasm in the population at risk.