The influence of marital status on stage at diagnosis and survival of patients with colorectal cancer

Marital status was found to be an independent prognostic factor for survival in various cancer types, but it hasn't been fully studied in colorectal cancer (CRC). The Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results database was used to compare survival outcomes with marital status in each stage. In total, 112, 776 eligible patients were identified. Patients in the widowed group were more frequently elderly women, more common of colon cancer, and more stage I/II in tumor stage (P < 0.001), but the surgery rate was comparable to that for the married group (94.72% VS 94.10%). Married CRC patients had better 5year cause-specific survival (CSS) than those unmarried (P < 0.05). Further analysis showed that widowed patients always presented the lowest CSS compared with that of other' group. Widowed patients had 5% reduction 5-year CSS compared with married patients at stage I (94.8% vs 89.8%, P < 0.001), 9.4% reduction at stage II (85.9% vs 76.5%, P < 0.001), 16.7% reduction at stage III (70.6% vs 53.9%, P < 0.001) and 6.2% reduction at stage IV(14.4% VS 8.2%, P < 0.001). These results showed that unmarried patients were at greater risk of cancer specific mortality. Despite favorable clinicpathological characteristics, widowed patients were at highest risk of death compared with other groups.