Colon cancer incidence, treatment, and survival have changed significantly in recent years. Heidi Swartjes explained this in his thesis, which he defended at Radboud University on March 28. Moreover, it describes new ways of organizing follow-up.
In the first part of his thesis, Swartjes mapped the trends surrounding colon cancer. It shows that the incidence of colon cancer peaked after the introduction of population screening for colon cancer. The 5-year survival rate for non-metastatic colon cancer appears to have increased in recent years, while it has remained stagnant for metastatic disease. In addition, higher rates of colon cancer in young adults (under 50 years of age) do not appear to be a reason to change policy for this group. Moreover, his research confirms that patients undergoing curative treatment in the Netherlands for local recurrence of colon cancer (3.8%) or rectal cancer (6.4%) have good survival.
In the second part of the thesis, Swartjes investigates trials and observational studies surrounding the follow-up of colon cancer patients. He discovered that remote consultations had increased due to the Covid-19 pandemic and that more remote care could be organized in the future.
Swartjes wrote his thesis entitled “Colorectal cancer follow-up: peaks, patterns and allocation” under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Hans de Welt, Prof. Dr. Kees Verhoff and Dr. Pauline Vissers.
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