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Background: High rates of advanced colorectal cancer (CRC) are still diagnosed in the right side of the colon. This study aimed to investigate whether screening programs increase CRC detection and whether tumor location is associated with survival outcome. Methods: Patients affected by CRC, aged from 50 to 69 years and operated on from 2005 to 2009 were reviewed. Other than patient-, disease-, and treatment-related factors, detection mode and tumor location were recorded. Overall (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) were investigated, using univariate and multivariate analyses. Results: Mean age of 386 patients included was 62.0 years, 59 % were males. CRC was detected by screening in 17 % of cases, and diagnosis was made from symptoms in 67 % and emergency surgery for 16 %. Screen-detected CRCs were located in the left colon (59 %), then in rectum (25 %) and in proximal colon (16 %) ( p = 0.02). Most of CRC patients urgently operated on had cancer located in proximal colon (45 %), then in the left colon (36 %) and in rectum (18 %) ( p = 0.001). Right-sided CRC demonstrated higher pTNM stage ( p = 0.001), adequate harvest count nodes ( p = 0.0001), metastatic nodes ( p = 0.02), and poor differentiation grading ( p = 0.0001). With multivariate analysis, poor differentiation grade was independently associated with both worse OS (HR 3.6, p = 0.05) and worse DFS (HR 8.1, p = 0.0001), while distant recurrence was associated with worse OS (HR 20.1, p = 0.0001). Conclusion: Low rates of right-sided CRC are diagnosed following screening program. Proximal CRC demonstrates aggressive behavior without impact on outcome. These findings prompt concern about population awareness for CRC screening. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]