Cardiovascular-specific mortality and risk factors in colorectal Cancer patients: A cohort study based on registry data of over 500,000 individuals in the US

Background: Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide, and recent studies have found that CRC patients are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). This study aimed to investigate competing causes of death and prognostic factors among a large cohort of CRC patients and to describe cardiovascular-specific mortality in relation to the US standard population. Methods: This registry-based cohort study identified patients diagnosed with CRC between 1973 and 2015 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database in the US. Cumulative mortality functions, conditional standardized mortality ratios, and cause-specific hazard ratios were calculated. Results: Of the 563,298 eligible CRC patients included in this study, 407,545 died during the follow-up period. CRC was the leading cause of death, accounting for 49.8% of all possible competing causes of death. CVD was the most common non-cancer cause of death, accounting for 17.8% of total mortality. This study found that CRC patients have a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular-specific mortality compared to the US standard population, with the risk increasing with age and extended survival time. Conclusion: This study highlights the need to develop multidisciplinary prevention and management strategies for CRC and CVD to improve CRC patients' survival and quality of life.