Colorectal carcinoma incidence and association of preoperative carcinoembryonic antigen levels with staging and histological types in the Malabar region; A cross-sectional study

Introduction. Colorectal carcinoma has a tendency to increase in recent times worldwide. Even though it is less prevalent in the developing world like India, Kerala has seen a sudden increase in incidence due to changing lifestyle and dietary habits. Objectives. The study aims to describe the epidemiological characteristics of colorectal cancer in adults from the Malabar region, and to find out the relationship between preoperative carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) values with histological results and TNM staging. Methods. This is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at Government Medical College, Kozhikode over a period of 1 year and 6 months starting from July 2020. 168 adult patients aged above 30 years were included in the study. Results. 92 out of 168 patients included in the study (54.8%) were men, colorectal carcinoma being more common in the 50-70 age group. The most common histological variant was well-differentiated adenocarcinoma. 32.7% of the study population had higher CEA levels (>5 ng/ml). Conclusion. While CEA levels in 67.3% of study subjects were within normal limits, the obtained data showed that preoperative CEA levels had a statistically significant relationship only with TNM staging, and not with histological variants.