Socioeconomic Impact of Emergency Therapies for Colorectal Cancer

Colorectal cancers are the third most common malignant tumors worldwide and are associated with an increased economic expenditure for healthcare systems due to its high diagnostic, therapeutic, and follow-up costs. Elective surgical resection is the gold standard for CRCs curative treatment, but up to 30% of CRC patients are presenting at emergency setting. Emergency surgery for CRC increases postoperative morbidity, mortality, length of admissions, and costs. Moreover, curative resection rates are lower and recurrences higher after emergency operations. There is substantial heterogeneity in the methodologies and quality of the published economic evaluations of CRC, and emergency surgery may represent an underestimated cost burden to healthcare systems and society worldwide. Novel strategies to separately evaluate, reduce, and improve the quality for the emergent management of colorectal cancer should be explored as a global health target.