Baseline characteristics of colorectal cancer cases and their matched referents, and tumour characteristics of cases
| Cases | Referents | p Value* | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No | Median or % | No | Median or % | ||
| *Mann-Whitney or χ2 test. | |||||
| †Median (25th–75th percentile). | |||||
| ‡Dukes’ stage could not be determined for three cases with only biopsy tissue available. | |||||
| Sex (M/F) (%) | 94/132 | 41.6/58.4 | 184/253 | 42.1/57.9 | 0.899 |
| Age (y)† | 226 | 59.8 (50.3–60.2) | 437 | 59.7 (50.2–60.2) | 0.661 |
| Follow up time (y)† | 226 | 4.2 (2.4–6.7) | |||
| Body mass index (kg/m2)† | 182 | 26.1 (23.5–29.0) | 350 | 25.9 (23.8–28.3) | 0.617 |
| P-Folate (nmol/l)† | 221 | 8.1 (6.2–10.3) | 432 | 7.8 (5.8–11.1) | 0.704 |
| P-Homocysteine (μmol/l)† | 226 | 11.7 (10.0–13.8) | 436 | 11.4 (9.6–13.8) | 0.312 |
| Current smoker (%) | 218 | 38 (17.4) | 424 | 90 (21.2) | 0.254 |
| Tumour site (%) | |||||
| Right colon | 72 | 31.9 | |||
| Left colon | 70 | 31.0 | |||
| Rectum | 84 | 37.2 | |||
| Dukes’ stage‡ (%) | |||||
| A | 41 | 18.4 | |||
| B | 81 | 36.3 | |||
| C | 66 | 29.6 | |||
| D | 35 | 15.7 | |||