Postoperative follow-up strategies for patients after potentially curative surgery for colorectal cancer at Christchurch Hospital.

AIM: To describe the follow-up patterns of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC) having had surgery with curative intent.

METHODS: A retrospective study was undertaken of follow-up patterns in patients who had undergone 'curative' surgery for colorectal cancer at Christchurch Hospital from 1 January 1996 to 31 December 2000. Patients were identified from three sources: the General Surgical Audit Database (Otago system), the hospital clinical Casemix DRG Database, and the Oncology Service database. Patients were included only if they had surgery with curative intent, within the stated period, and had follow-up at Christchurch Hospital. Data extracted included: patient demographics, details of initial surgery, adjuvant therapies, recurrences, and details of follow-up arrangements (including investigations).

RESULTS: Of 893 patients coded as having CRC, 284 patients met the inclusion criteria. Patients were excluded for the following reasons: no operation (64), operation before 1996 (18), palliative surgery (345), previous cancer (55), no cancer (32), died within 30 days of surgery (26), follow-up outside of Christchurch region (39), and notes unavailable (30). The median age was 72 (range 28.6-99.9 years). Median follow-up time was 732 days. Most patients (91%) were followed-up by their surgeon. Patients had an average of 2.6 visits to their specialist in the first year of follow-up. Unplanned clinic visits accounted for 8.3% of all clinic visits--resulting in a number of unplanned investigations. During the follow-up period, patients had 112 colonoscopies, 68 CT scans, 8 abdominal ultrasounds, and 7 barium enemas. Recurrence was detected in 58 patients (20.4%); 23 (39.7%) recurrences were detected in the first year of follow-up. Of the 279 patients who had some form of follow-up, 9 asymptomatic patients had recurrent disease (detected as a result of a planned clinic visit) and had a potentially curative procedure for recurrence.

CONCLUSIONS: The number of visits per year correlated closely with the earlier findings of Connor et al,4 however the number of investigations carried out was variable and substantially less than had been reported. Follow-up visits have limited value for the detection of asymptomatic potentially curable recurrent disease.