The impact of young age on outcome in colon cancer

4075 Background: The early age of diagnosis (<40 years) of colon cancer (CC) is generally considered to be associated with a particularly grave prognosis. Our objective was to determine the prognostic relevance of young age on outcome in CC. Methods: Retrospective cohort study from Region 5 of the California Cancer Registry (R5 CCR). Survival by Kaplan- Meier with significance assessed by log-rank test, T-test and Chi Square where appropriate. Results: Between January 1,1994 and December 31, 2003 10,730 patients with CC were diagnosed in R5 CCR. The patients ranged in age from 18–103 years (mean 71.1 years). Two hundred fourteen patients (2%) were 40 years of age or younger. The mean age of young patients was 34.6 years (range 18–40) and for old patients 71.3 years (range 41–103). The mean number of nodes examined were 18.5 in the young CC patient and 18.4 in the remainder of CC patients. There was no significant difference in the anatomic sub-site of the primary between younger and older CC patients (p=0...