5% of all the CRC were left sided. It is very important to determine the anatomic distribution of CRC in the local population because this could play a major role in the selection of an appropriate screening method for CRC due to the prevalent left-sided CRC in our studies. At this stage, we believe that fecal occult blood test and sigmoidoscopy might be cost-effective options for Chinese patients, especially in areas with limited resources or colonoscopy expertise. We believe that the

reasons for this absence of left-to-right shift in our patients are: (i) the socioeconomic development in China, which has been occurring for 30 years; and (ii) although the lifestyle AZD2281 solubility dmso and dietary habits of Chinese people have changed substantially, the median age of CRC patients in our study was 62 years, which means that these patients had a relatively short duration of exposure to dietary factors and lifestyle changes. In a previous study, Whittemore et al.24 compared the age-specific incidence rates for colon and rectal cancers in Chinese in North America and U0126 cost in China, and found that colon cancer rates among elderly Chinese–American men equaled those of whites, which are seven times the corresponding rate in China; the author suggested that sex-specific etiological exposures or sex-specific susceptibilities to common exposures among Chinese–Americans might be possible for this

striking difference in CRC incidence. Therefore, we suppose that the absence of the left-to-right shift in our study could be caused by the short duration of risk factor exposure, and a possible left-to-right shift could appear 30–40 years later; however, this hypothesis needs to be confirmed in future studies. In addition, the mean age

of the study population was less than 50 years old, which makes the observation of left-to-right shift a little difficult. The incidence of proximal cancer in our population was quite high (∼40%), and therefore it was less likely to observe an increased incidence of right-sided lesions. Finally, it should be noted that a time-related trend in the incidence of CRC is difficult to assess over such a relatively short period of time. Our data suggest that the proportion of right-sided adenoma and CRC was higher in older patients, Rutecarpine and this finding is consistent with early reports on the influence of age on the anatomic distribution of CRC.9,25–27 Greene9 retrospectively reviewed a total of 1112 patients with CRC and 429 patients with benign polypoids, and noted a 12% increase in the number of right-sided lesions and a 44% decrease in rectosigmoid lesions, when compared with historical series; this supported the concept that CRC was occurring with increasing frequency in the right colon. Butcher et al.25 studied the distribution by subsite and sector of 948 CRC patients, and found decreasing left and increasing right occurrence of cancer for both sexes, but this difference was statistically significant only for women. Fleshner et al.