According to GLOBOCAN, colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer and the fourth most common cause of cancerrelated death, with 1.85 million new cases diagnosed worldwide in 2018. [1,2] The incidence of CRC appears to be increasing in emerging low-and middle-income countries (LMICs) owing to socioepidemiological transitions, including dietary changes, with countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) reporting a notable increase in colorectal, breast and prostate cancer. [3,4] South Africa (SA) is no exception-the incidence of CRC is increasing steadily, and it was the sixth leading cause of cancer-related death in 2018. [1] It is noteworthy that apart from increasing incidence, the average age of CRC patients at the time of diagnosis in SSA is ~10 years younger than that observed in high-income countries (HICs). [5,6] In addition, other non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including diabetes and respiratory and cardiovascular disease, are on the rise, with the prevalence in SA being reported as two to three times higher than in HICs. [7] While there are no published data on comorbidity with CRC from SSA, many CRC cohorts from HICs describe a considerable comorbidity burden that adversely affects short-(30-day) and long-This open-access article is distributed under Creative Commons licence CC-BY-NC 4.0.