Globally, colorectal cancer is the third commonest cause of
cancer death in men since 1975. In the developed countries it
is now the second most common cancer after lung in men
and the 1990 age-standardized incidence rates range from
25.3 per 100,000 (Eastern Europe) to 45.8 per 100,000
(Australia)[12].
In India, although the incidence rate of colorectal cancer is
very low, and rectal cancer remains more common, a
significant increase in its incidence has been reported for
both men and women over the last two decades. The age
adjusted annual incidence rates (AAR) of colorectal cancers
per 100,000 persons during the year 2004-05/ 2005-06 in the
various population based cancer registries operating under
Indian Council of Medical Research was found to range from
1.5 to 6.9 and 2.5 to 7.4 amongst males and females in urban
areas respectively. Similarly, in the rural areas the rates were
1.6 and 2.4 and 1.1 to 1.3 amongst males and females
respectively [2]. The trend analysis for seven Population
Based Cancer Registries (PBCRs) of the country during
1968-72 to 1998-2002 was estimated as an annual percentage
change (APC) using relative difference between recent and
the earliest AARs. Out of the seven PBCRs an increasing
trend AAR in the colorectal cancer was observed in three
registries ranging from 0.63% to 1.8% and 0.11% to 0.69 %
in various registries amongst males and females respectively.
An estimated 35635 new cases of colorectal cancer occurred
in 2006, accounting to 3.9 per cent of all new cases of
cancer.