Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Oncology Volume 2010, Article ID 865908, 5 pages doi:10.1155/2010/865908 Clinical Study Outcome of Colonic Surgery in Elderly Patients with Colon Cancer E. Hermans, 1 P. M. van Schaik, 1 H. A. Prins, 1 M. F. Ernst, 1 P. J. L. Dautzenberg, 2 and K. Bosscha 1 1 Department of Surgery, Jeroen Bosch Hospital, Nieuwstraat 54, 5211’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands 2 Department of Geriatrics, Jeroen Bosch Hospital, Nieuwstraat 54, 5211’s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands Correspondence should be addressed to P. M. van Schaik, p.m.vanschaik@umcutrecht.nl Received 9 December 2009; Revised 27 March 2010; Accepted 12 April 2010 Academic Editor: Francis Seow-Choen Copyright © 2010 E. Hermans et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Introduction. Colonic cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed malignancies and most often occurs in patients aged 65 years or older. Aim. To evaluate the outcome of colonic surgery in the elderly in our hospital and to compare five-year survival rates between the younger and elderly patients. Methods. 207 consecutive patients underwent surgery for colon cancer. Patients were separated in patients younger than 75 and older than 75 years. Results. Elderly patients presented significantly more (P<.05) as a surgical emergency, had a longer duration of admission and were more often admitted to the ICU (P<.01). Also, elderly patients had significant more co-morbidities, especially cardiovascular pathology (P<.01). Post-operative complications were seen more often in the elderly, although no significant difference was seen in anastomotic leakage. The five-year survival rate in the younger group was 62% compared with 36% in the elderly (P<.05). DFS was 61% in the younger patients compared with 32% in the elderly (P<.05). Conclusion. Curative resection of colonic carcinoma in the elderly is well tolerated and age alone should not be an indication for less aggressive therapy. However, the type and number of co-morbidities influence post-operative mortality and morbidity. 1. Introduction Colonic cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed malignancies in men and women in developed countries. The disease rarely occurs before age of 40 and the risk of colonic cancer is the highest around age of 70. Seventy-five percent of colon tumors are found in patients aged 65 years or older [1]. The incidence of colonic cancer has increased in the last decades. With the increase of age in the general population in developed countries the next future decades, the number of elderly patients who present with this disease will increase [2]. Unfortunately, most elderly patients who develop colonic cancer also have significant other comorbidities such as cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, which increase the operative risk and the risk of postoperative morbidity and mortality [3]. Other factors that contribute to poor outcome of surgery in the elderly are delayed presentation and more advanced disease [4]. Therefore, curative surgery of colonic cancer in elderly patients is debatable, especially in the very elderly patients, who have limited prospects of survival. Some authors promote extensive surgery, including multistage procedures, as performed in younger patients [5, 6]; others promote less aggressive surgery [7, 8]. The aim of this study was to evaluate the outcome of colonic surgery in the elderly in our hospital to determine the best treatment strategy in this patient category. 2. Patients and Methods In the period January 1999–January 2004, 207 consecutive patients underwent surgery for stages I–III colonic cancer. Patients with rectal cancer and patients that presented with distant metastases were excluded. All patients were separated into two groups, one group with patients younger than 75 years and one group with patients older than 75 years.