Abstract B006: Early-onset colorectal cancer: 10 year review of histopathological trends in a tertiary hospital in Accra, Ghana
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Objective: Colorectal cancer (CRC) ranks 8th in cancer-related mortality in Ghana. Globally, it is the third most common cancer and second in cancer-related deaths. Early-onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC), defined as CRC occurring before age 50, is rising. This study reviews the prevalence of EOCRC, the histological grade, and pathological stage at tumour resection. Methods: A retrospective analysis of histopathology records at the Pathology Department, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra was conducted. Colorectal cancer cases diagnosed between 2015 and 2024 were reviewed. Data on patients aged 18–49 were extracted and analysed using STATA 14. Results: Over the ten-year review period, 44 cases of early-onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC) were diagnosed following surgical resection, representing 22.6% of all colorectal cancer diagnoses during the same period. The male-to-female ratio was 1.3 to 1, indicating a slight male predominance. Most patients were between 40 and 49 years old, accounting for 47.7% of cases. The least diagnoses were recorded in the 20 to 29 age group, comprising only 11.4%. Histologically, 50% of the tumors were classified as well-differentiated adenocarcinomas. Moderately differentiated adenocarcinomas accounted for 45.5%, while 6.8% were poorly differentiated. According to the TNM classification, 18.2% of tumors were staged as T2, indicating invasion of the muscularis propria. A larger proportion, 47.7%, were T3 tumors- the tumor had invaded the subserosa or non-peritonealized pericolic or perirectal tissues. T4 tumors, which invade adjacent organs or perforate the visceral peritoneum, made up 34.1% of the cases. 54.5% of patients had no regional lymph node metastasis (N0). About 15.9% had metastases in one to three lymph nodes (N1), while 25% had involvement of four or more regional lymph nodes (N2). In 4.5% of the cases, lymph node status could not be assessed (NX). Conclusion: Over one in five colorectal cancer cases occurred in individuals under 50, and mostly presenting at advanced local tumour stages. These findings highlight the need for increased awareness and early screening for CRCs in Ghana. Citation Format: barbara adjei- mensah, patience pepra- ameyaw. Early-onset colorectal cancer: 10 year review of histopathological trends in a tertiary hospital in Accra, Ghana [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Special Conference in Cancer Research: The Rise in Early-Onset Cancers—Knowledge Gaps and Research Opportunities; 2025 Dec 10-13; Montreal, QC, Canada. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Clin Cancer Res 2025;31(23_Suppl):Abstract nr B006.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".