Behind rising rates of colorectal cancer among young people: Researchers identify new concerns

Young people who develop colon cancer tend to be diagnosed at later stages of the devastating disease — and have more aggressive types of tumors, a new study finds.

The study authors “strongly” link colon cancer in young adults to obesity, family history of the disease, inflammatory bowel disease and symptoms such as stomach pain and rectal bleeding.

Researchers investigated about 319,000 US cases of colon cancer diagnosed between 2015 and 2021. Of those, about 17,000 patients were between the ages of 18 and 44 and another 302,000 were older.

Colon cancer has long been associated with older adults, especially people over 65. But the rate of colorectal cancer has been rising steadily among adults under 50 since the 1990s.

“We know that over the past 20 years, rates of colon cancer diagnoses have decreased 20% for patients 66 and older,” said Dr. Kelley Chan, lead author of the study and a fourth-year general surgery resident at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago.

“However, rates of this cancer in those between 18 and 44 have increased by 15% over that period,” she added.

Chan’s team noted that among the younger adult cases they studied, there were a remarkable number of non-Hispanic patients and a surprising number of patients diagnosed at later stages of the disease.

Chadwick Boseman was both — the “Black Panther” star was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer in 2016 at the age of 39 before dying of the disease in 2020 at the age of 43.

Oncologists have partly blamed the alarming rise in youth cases and deaths on obesity, a sedentary lifestyle, the Western diet, excessive sugar consumption, environmental factors such as pollutants in the air, soil and water, and other factors that have yet to be identified. have been identified.

“Our findings highlight the need for more research to understand the development of colon cancer in adults under the age of 45,” Chan said.

Inspired by the troubling trend, the US Preventive Services Task Force changed its colorectal cancer screening guidelines in 2021 to lower the recommended age to start screening from 50 to 45 for average-risk adults.

Young people who have been diagnosed with colorectal cancer are likely to experience anxiety and uncertainty about their physical and mental health, career, finances, fertility and family plans, a separate new study has found.

Researchers from the University of Michigan interviewed 35 patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer before the age of 50 and determined that there is a need for programming to address their unique challenges.

“We need more research to better understand these issues in patients with colorectal cancer as well as other cancers and, ultimately, to restructure our comprehensive cancer programs to ensure that we are treating the patient and not just the disease,” said lead study author Dr. . Samantha Savitch.

The research by Savitch and Chan will be presented in the coming days at the American College of Surgeons conference in San Francisco.