Background The incidence of young-onset colorectal cancer (yoCRC) is increasing. It is unknown if there are survival differences between young and older patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). Methods We studied the association of age with survival in 2326 mCRC patients enrolled in the CALGB/SWOG 80405 trial, a multi-center, randomized trial of first-line chemotherapy plus biologics. The primary and secondary outcomes of this study were overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS), respectively, which were assessed by Kaplan Meier method and compared among younger versus older patients with the log-rank test. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated based on Cox proportional hazards modeling, adjusting for known prognostic variables. All statistical tests were 2-sided. Results Of 2326 eligible subjects, 514 (22.1%) were younger than age 50 years at study entry (yoCRC cohort). The median age of yoCRC patients was 44.3 vs. 62.5 years in patients age 50 and over. There was no statistically significant difference in OS between yoCRC vs. older-onset patients (median = 27.07 vs. 26.12 months; adjusted HR = 0.98, 95% CI = 0.88–1.10, P = .78). The median PFS was also similar in yoCRC vs. older patients (10.87 vs. 10.55 months) with an adjusted HR of 1.02 (95% CI = 0.92–1.13, P = .67). Patients younger than age 35 years had the shortest OS with median OS of 21.95 vs. 26.12 months in older-onset patients with an adjusted HR of 1.08 (95% CI = 0.81–1.44, Ptrend =0.93). Conclusion In this large study of mCRC patients, there were no statistically significant differences in survival between patients with yoCRC and CRC patients age 50 and older.

PURPOSE Current tools in predicting survival outcomes for patients with colon cancer predominantly rely on clinical and pathologic characteristics, but increasing evidence suggests that diet and lifestyle habits are associated with patient outcomes and should be considered to enhance model accuracy. METHODS Using an adjuvant chemotherapy trial for stage III colon cancer (CALGB 89803), we developed prediction models of disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival by additionally incorporating self-reported nine diet and lifestyle factors. Both models were assessed by multivariable Cox proportional hazards regression and externally validated using another trial for stage III colon cancer (CALGB/SWOG 80702), and visual nomograms of prediction models were constructed accordingly. We also proposed three hypothetical scenarios for patients with (1) good-risk, (2) average-risk, and (3) poor-risk clinical and pathologic features, and estimated their predictive survival by considering clinical and pathologic features with or without adding self-reported diet and lifestyle factors. RESULTS Among 1,024 patients (median age 60.0 years, 43.8% female), we observed 394 DFS events and 311 deaths after median follow-up of 7.3 years. Adding self-reported diet and lifestyle factors to clinical and pathologic characteristics meaningfully improved performance of prediction models (c-index from 0.64 [95% CI, 0.62 to 0.67] to 0.69 [95% CI, 0.67 to 0.72] for DFS, and from 0.67 [95% CI, 0.64 to 0.70] to 0.71 [95% CI, 0.69 to 0.75] for overall survival). External validation also indicated good performance of discrimination and calibration. Adding most self-reported favorable diet and lifestyle exposures to multivariate modeling improved 5-year DFS of all patients and by 6.3% for good-risk, 21.4% for average-risk, and 42.6% for poor-risk clinical and pathologic features. CONCLUSION Diet and lifestyle factors further inform current recurrence and survival prediction models for patients with stage III colon cancer.

Background Limited and conflicting findings have been reported regarding the association between social support and colorectal cancer (CRC) outcomes. We sought to assess the influences of marital status and living arrangement on survival outcomes among patients with stage III colon cancer. Patients and Methods We conducted a secondary analysis of 1082 patients with stage III colon cancer prospectively followed in the CALGB 89803 randomized adjuvant chemotherapy trial. Marital status and living arrangement were both self-reported at the time of enrollment as, respectively, married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never-married, and living alone, with a spouse or partner, with other family, in a nursing home, or other. Results Over a median follow-up of 7.6 years, divorced/separated/widowed patients experienced worse outcomes relative to those married regarding disease free-survival (DFS) (hazards ratio (HR), 1.44 (95% CI, 1.14-1.81); P =.002), recurrence-free survival (RFS) (HR, 1.35 (95% CI, 1.05-1.73); P = .02), and overall survival (OS) (HR, 1.40 (95% CI, 1.08-1.82); P =.01); outcomes were not significantly different for never-married patients. Compared to patients living with a spouse/partner, those living with other family experienced a DFS of 1.47 (95% CI, 1.02-2.11; P = .04), RFS of 1.34 (95% CI, 0.91-1.98; P = .14), and OS of 1.50 (95% CI, 1.00-2.25; P =.05); patients living alone did not experience significantly different outcomes. Conclusion Among patients with stage III colon cancer who received uniform treatment and follow-up within a nationwide randomized clinical trial, being divorced/separated/widowed and living with other family were significantly associated with greater colon cancer mortality. Interventions enhancing social support services may be clinically relevant for this patient population. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT00003835

Introduction Depression is a global burden that is exacerbated by smoking. The association between depression and chronic smoking is well-known; however, existing findings contain possible confounding between nicotine dependence (ND), a latent construct measuring addiction, and objective smoking behavior. The current study examines the possible unique role of ND in explaining depression, independently of smoking behavior. Methods A nationally-representative sample of current adult daily smokers was drawn by pooling three independent, cross-sectional, biennial waves (spanning 2011-16) of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The association between ND (operationally defined as time to first cigarette (TTFC) after waking) and the amount of depression symptoms was examined after adjusting for both current and lifetime smoking behaviors (cigarettes per day and years of smoking duration) and sociodemographic factors (gender, age, race, education and income to poverty ratio). Results Earlier TTFC was associated with more depression symptoms, such that those smoking within 5 minutes of waking had an approximately 1.6-fold higher depression score (PRR = 1.576, 95% CI = 1.324-1.687) relative to those who smoke more than 1 hour after waking. This relationship remained significant after adjusting for current and lifetime smoking behavior as well as sociodemographic factors (PRR = 1.370, 95% CI = 1.113, 1.687).