Patients with Coronary Artery Disease at High Risk for Colorectal Cancer, Study Says

A study just released by researchers at the University of Hong Kong, China shows that patients who were just diagnosed with coronary artery disease turned out to be almost twice as likely to have colorectal tumors and cancers and the occurrence was even stronger in smokers or those who have the metabolic syndrome.

Colorectal cancer is the cancer with the second highest rate of occurrence with 1 out of every 20 healthy people developing the disease at some point in time.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the number one leading cause of death in not only the United States , but in other industrialized countries as well. There is a good reason for believing that the two may be connected because colorectal neoplasm, which are precancerous tumors, and coronary artery disease (CAD) both share similar risk factors.

Annie On On Chan, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Hong Kong, China, and her colleagues studied how widespread the occurrence of colorectal cancer and colorectal neoplasms were in patients who had been newly diagnosed with CAD. The participants were all from Hone Kong. They were recruited for a screening colonoscopy after they had undergone an angiography because they were suspected of having CAD. This process took place from November 2004 to June 2006. There was also a second group that was recruited as a control group from the general population.

CAD was found to be present in 206 of the participants. In this study, CAD w was defined as having at least 50% narrowing of the diameter in any of the major coronary arteries. Those who did not meet the definition amount to 208 of the participants and they were considered to be DAD free. There were 207 in the control group that were matched to the first one by age and sex.

The research showed that there was a higher percentage of
colorectal neoplasms, 34%. and advanced lesions 18.4% win the CAD-positive group than in the CAD-negative group which had 18.8 % colorectal neoplasms and 8.7 % advanced lesions. And it was also more prevalent than it was in the general population which had 20.8 % and 5.8%.