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Associations of Demographic and Socioeconomic Factors with Complete Treatment and Follow-up of Colon Cancer

AUTHORS

avatar Esmat Davoudi-Monfared 1 , avatar Mohammad Ali Heidarnia 1 , * , avatar Mohammad Esmail Akbari 2 , avatar Parvin Yavari 1 , avatar Alireza Abadi 1

1 Dept. of Community Medicine and Health, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

2 Cancer Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

How to Cite: Davoudi-Monfared E, Heidarnia M A, Akbari M E, Yavari P, Abadi A. Associations of Demographic and Socioeconomic Factors with Complete Treatment and Follow-up of Colon Cancer. Int J Cancer Manag. 2012;5(4):e80838.

ARTICLE INFORMATION

International Journal of Cancer Management: 5 (4); e80838
Published Online: December 31, 2012
Article Type: Research Article
Received: July 01, 2012
Accepted: August 05, 2012
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Abstract

Background: Cancer is the second cause of death in the world, and colon cancer is the third cause of death and is one of the most common cancers which will cure with early diagnosis, treatment and sufficient follow up. Assessing factors which affect this cancer is important for prolonging patient survival. Socioeconomic factors are among effective factors of cancer morbidity and mortality. Because mortality rates for colon cancers vary by socioeconomic characteristics, this study has been performed to recognize the relationship between socioeconomic factors with treatment and follow up of colon cancer.
Methods: This was a cross-sectional, descriptive study for patients with colon cancer registered in Cancer Research Center of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences from April 2005 to November 2006. Patients were selected randomly, and the study was conducted using questionnaires filled by interviewing the patients via phone (if a patient was dead, the questions were asked from their family members). Data analysis was done using SPSS (version 19) software.
Results: The study was performed on 520 colon cancer patients with age range of 23-88 years. The mean age of the patients was 63 (S.D.=11.8) and the median age was 64. Two hundred thirty seven (45.4%) patients were female and 283 (54.4%) were male. Using Chi-square test, age<60 (p=0.002) and female gender (p=0.034) had a significant correlation with complete treatment and there was a significant relationship between complete follow up and age<60 (p=0.037), academic education (p=0.02) and having insurance (p=0.021). Multiple logistic regression tests were used to evaluate concurrent effects of variables on treatment and follow up. Correlated variables to complete treatment include: age<60 (p=0.001), and female gender The Odds Ratio (OR) of completing treatment for patients under 60 years of age versus patients above 60 years was 3.13 (95% C.I. 1.55 to 6.34), and the OR of completing treatment for women versus men was 1.91(95% C.I. 1.33 to 2.74). Correlated variables to follow up were academic education ( ) and having insurance . The OR of cancer follow up in illiterate patients versus college-educated patients was 0.45 (95% C.I. 0.24 to 0.82), and the OR of cancer follow up in patients without insurance versus patients with health was 0.46 (95% C.I. 0.21 to 0.98).
Conclusion: Age is a correlated factor on completing colon cancer treatment. Women have more complete colon cancer treatment than men. Academic education and having insurance were the most important factors among socioeconomic factors observed in a five-year follow up after treatment. As the population of the old is increasing, executing effective interventions to improve treatment and follow up procedures for old patients is of prime importance. It seems that increasing the insurance contribution in follow up measures may lead to increase in the regular follow up and may affect patients' survival.

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© 2012, Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits copy and redistribute the material just in noncommercial usages, provided the original work is properly cited.
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