The study covered in this summary was published on ssrn.com as a preprint and has not yet been peer reviewed.
Key Takeaway
Patients' risk of colon cancer nearly quadrupled within a year of being treated for acute appendicitis.
Why This Matters
Past reports associating appendicitis with colon cancer have mostly been based on single-center series limited to people older than 40 years.
The new study captures virtually every case of appendicitis in young and middle-aged adults in France from 2010–2015.
Given the short interval between appendicitis and cancer diagnosis, the study suggests that appendicitis is an early warning sign of colon cancer, not a cause of it.
The findings support routine colon cancer screening for adult patients with appendicitis.
Study Design
Using the French Hospital Discharge Database, investigators matched 230,512 acute appendicitis cases in adults aged 18–59 years in a 1:2 ratio with 461,024 control persons hospitalized for trauma from 2010–2015. Case patients and control persons were matched on age, sex, and comorbidity index.
The team compared subsequent colon cancer rates between the two groups.
Participants with a personal or a family history of colon cancer and other strong risk factors were excluded.
Patients who were diagnosed with colon cancer within a month of having appendicitis were excluded to rule out cases that were diagnosed during
