Intestinal obstruction: a factor of worse prognosis of rectal cancer?

To assess the relationship between intestinal obstruction and the prognosis of rectal cancer. Data of 151 rectal cancer patients were extracted between January 2010 and October 2015 to survival analyse. The Kaplan-Meier method is used to survival analyse. The log-rank test was executed to compare the survival rate between patients with intestinal obstruction and those without intestinal obstruction. Cox proportional hazards regression analysis was performed to estimate the crude hazard ratio of mortality from colorectal cancer. The χ2 test was used to compare disordered qualitative variables. The Kruskal Wallis H test was used to compare ordered qualitative variables. The 3-5 years overall survival rate after treatment of patients with intestinal obstruction were shorter than patients without intestinal obstruction respectively. The 3-5 years disease-free survival rate after treatment of patients with intestinal obstruction was lower than patients without intestinal obstruction, respectively. The log-rank test suggested that there were significant difference between the two overall survival curves (P=0.013) and two disease-free survival curves (P=0.047). Univariate and Multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression analysis suggested that intestinal obstruction decreased overall survival rate (P<0.05) instead of disease-free survival rate (P>0.05). Intestinal obstruction is a factor of poor prognosis of rectal cancer.