Ava Vessali

High School Diploma

Northeastern

Student

PLCO (Learn more about this study)

PLCO-939

Mar 7, 2022

Is Surgical Resection The Best Option For Colorectal Cancer Patients?

My project proposes an analysis of colorectal cancer patients who had surgical resection and those who did not. I will compare each patients age, sex, legion size, stage of cancer, and tumor location. i can analyze which patients are given a treatment plan including resection, and what their outcomes were. The first data set I will be using is the clinical study on the watch and wait strategy vs surgical resection(Wang, Zhang, Xiao). This study compared 117 watch and wait patients to 354 radical resection patients, aligning their sex, age, cancer stage and tumor location to follow them for 38 months and compare their rates of remission, sphincter preservation and survival rates. The other data set is available by request through the National Cancer Institute cancer data access system and I would also like to use for my project. Within this data set there is information such as the patients history of colorectal cancer, their age, sex, legion size, stage of cancer, tumor location, initial primary treatment plan, and outcome. This data could all be used to evaluate which patients are good candidates for resection and which appear to not need a resection, and what their outcomes were from both paths. I will compare patients with similar diagnosis and different treatment plans across data sets and analyze who had better outcomes. All this data will help me answer the question: “Who is a good candidate for surgical resection? And what is the likely outcome of their treatment?” The other purpose of my research proposal is to highlight that the question posed above does not tell the full story. It is good to be able to predict the mortality outcome of a patient, but how will the patients quality of life be affected? We do not currently have much accessible data on how surgical resection affects the quality of life of colorectal cancer patients, and given that quality of life is a relevant variable to each patient, how many people could be spared resection and have their sphincter preserved? How do the risks of regrowth compare to the chance for a higher quality of life?