The effect of insurance status on the stage of colorectal cancer at diagnosis.

420 Background: There is currently a lot of focus on the number of uninsured patients in the country. Part of the recent healthcare debate revolved around the lack of preventative medicine and screening in such patients. The assumption is that patients without insurance present to hospitals with later stages of disease. The purpose of this study was to evaluate patients with colorectal cancer, and to see if their insurance status was related to the stage of their cancer at diagnosis. Methods: All patients in our tumor registry with a diagnosis of colorectal cancer between 2000 and 2010 were initially included. Those who did not have their complete care in our hospital, or those for whom insurance information was not available, were excluded. Patients were categorized into insured and uninsured patients. Cancer staging at the time of diagnosis was done according to the American Joint Committee on Cancer guidelines, and patients with stage 3 or 4 disease were classified as having advanced cancer. Results: T...