Characteristics and prognosis of colorectal signet ring cell carcinoma in patients aged ≥ 65 years

Objective: To evaluate the prognostic value of age on colorectal signet ring cell carcinoma (SRCC) and identify the prognosis factors of patients aged ≥ 65 years.Methods: Patients were recruited from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database. We ensured that all characteristics were well balanced through adopting the propensity score matching (PSM) method. In addition, the prognostic factors were evaluated by the Cox proportional hazardous model.Results: Altogether 3305 cases were enrolled, including 1564 in elderly group (aged ³65 years). As a result, more patients were female, unmarried, white, earlier AJCC stage, tumor size ≤5cm, grade III/IV and located in cecum–transverse colon in the elderly group; whereas significant fewer patients received chemotherapy and radiotherapy. After 1:1 PSM analysis, each group contained 1032 cases. As discovered by Kaplan-Meier analysis, the elderly group was associated with remarkably dismal survival compared with the younger group after PSM analysis (P=0.0091).Moreover, grade, primary site, AJCC stage, tumor size, surgery and chemotherapy were identified as the independent prognostic factors for the elderly patients.Conclusion: The prognosis of colorectal SRCC aged ≥ 65 years was worse than the younger patients. We may need strengthen the chemotherapy of the eldly colorectal SRCC.