Photo Credit: GroblerduPreez

Patients with early-onset colorectal cancer (EO-CRC) in rural areas have lower survival rates, according to a research letter in JAMA Network Open. Meng-Han Tsai, PhD, and colleagues examined EO-CRC mortality’s associations with persistent poverty, rurality, and the intersection of poverty and rurality. The analysis included 58,200 patients with EO-CRC from the 2006-2015 SEER Program. Overall, five-year survival was highest for those living in non-poverty and non-rural areas (72%) and lowest for those living in poverty regardless of rurality (67%). There was some variation by age group (e.g., survival was 64% for those aged 20-29 years living in impoverished rural areas). Patients in rural areas alone had a 1.1- to 1.4-fold increased risk for CRC death versus patients in non-rural areas (HR, 1.35, 1.26, and 1.12 for those aged 20-29, 30-39, and 40-49, respectively). Patients living in both poverty and rural areas had a 1.1- to 1.5-fold increased risk for death compared with those in non-rural areas (Overall HR, 1.29), with notably high estimates for those aged 30-39 years (HR, 1.51).