In most young adults with colorectal cancer, tumors are already in advanced stage at the initiation of the treatment and the prognosis has been considered unfavorable. However, some recent articles have shown that it is not necessarily dismal. Therefore, we evaluated retrospectively the incidence, the clinical characteristics and the prognosis in 50 patients with colorectal cancer less than 40 years of age who admitted to the Kyung Hee University Hoapital from Jan. 1981 to Jan 1991. The incidence of colorectal cancer in patients less than 40 years af age was 6.8% (50/739) and the male versus female ratio revealed 1:1. The patients whose clinical, symptom had been for over 6 months before visiting the hospital was 74%, but the duration of clinical symptom had no significant relation to overall survival. The most common pathologic type was moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma. The 5 year cumulative survival rate was 39%. In conclusion, the clinical characteristics of colorectal cancer in patients less than 40 years of age were not different from those of overall colorectal cancer patients, and the prognosis was not unfavorable.