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Colorectal Cancer: Surgery

Volume 459: debated on Wednesday 18 April 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many rectal cancer operations were carried out by the NHS in each of the last three years; and what the cost of such operations was in each year. (130483)

Information on the number of operations relating to rectal and colon cancer in the last three years for which figures are available, is shown in the following table.

Information on the cost of these operations is not available.

Count of finished consultant episodes (FCEs) with an operation and with a primary diagnosis of colon and rectum insitu and secondary neoplasms between 2003-04 and 2005-06

FCEs

2003-04

130,451

2004-05

129,357

2005-06

136,979

Notes:

1. Diagnosis (primary diagnosis): The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 14 (seven prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) data set and provides the main reason why the patient was in hospital.

2. Finished consultant episode (FCE): An FCE is defined as a period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one health care provider. Please note that the figures do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one episode of care within the year.

3. Ungrossed data: Figures have not been adjusted for shortfalls in data (i.e. the data are ungrossed).

4. Main operation: The main operation is the first recorded operation in the HES data set and is usually the most resource intensive procedure performed during the episode. It is appropriate to use main operation when looking at admission details, e.g. time waited, but the figures for “all operations count of episodes” give a more complete count of episodes with an operation.

Source:

(HES) The Information Centre for health and social care.

The following ICD-10 diagnosis codes were used to look for procedures in the primary procedure field:

C18 Malignant neoplasm of colon

C18.0 Caecum

C18.1 Appendix

C18.2 Ascending colon

C18.3 Hepatic flexure

C18.4 Transverse colon

C18.5 Splenic flexure

C18.6 Descending colon

C18.7 Sigmoid colon

C18.8 Overlapping lesion of colon

C18.9 Colon, unspecified

C19 Malignant neoplasm of rectosigmoid junction

C20 Malignant neoplasm of rectum

C21 Malignant neoplasm of anus and anal canal

C21.0 Anus, unspecified

C21.1 Anal canal

C21.2 Cloacogenic zone

C21.8 Overlapping lesion of rectum, anus and anal canal

The following ICD-10 codes relate to only the rectum

C19 Malignant neoplasm of rectosigmoid junction

C20 Malignant neoplasm of rectum

C21.8 Overlapping lesion of rectum, anus and anal canal

Secondary neoplasms

C75.5 Secondary malignant neoplasm of large intestine and rectum

Insitu neoplasms

D01 Carcinoma in situ of other and unspecified digestive organs

D01.0 Colon

D01.1 Rectosigmoid junction

D01.2 Rectum

D01.3 Anus and anal canal