Colon cancer continues to rise among younger U.S. adults, with the American Cancer Society reporting a doubling of cases in people younger than 55 in about 25 years.
Also, significantly more Americans are being diagnosed with advanced stages of the disease, the cancer society says.
As of 2019, 20 percent of colon cancer cases occurred in adults under age 55 — up from just 11 percent in 1995, according to the new report.
Moreover, researchers found that the proportion of people diagnosed with advanced-stage cancer reached 60 percent in 2019, up from 52 percent in the mid‐2000s. The rate of advanced disease was 57 percent in 1995 before widespread screening was available.
Cancer experts are baffled, especially since numbers are declining in the overall population.
What’s driving the increase?
“We don’t know what is driving the increase in colorectal cancer among young people,” says senior researcher Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president for surveillance and health equity science at the cancer society.
“There is a lot of research going on. Some people say it’s probably obesity or changes in diet over the past decades that might be a reason, but really, we don’t know exactly what causes this rapid rise in colorectal cancer incidence rates,” he says.
This year more than 153,000 Americans will be diagnosed with colon cancer and 52,550 will die from the disease, the researchers note.
Cancer experts are baffled, especially since numbers are declining in the overall population.
What’s driving the increase?
“We don’t know what is driving the increase in colorectal cancer among young people,” says senior researcher Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, senior vice president for surveillance and health equity science at the cancer society.
“There is a lot of research going on. Some people say it’s probably obesity or changes in diet over the past decades that might be a reason, but really, we don’t know exactly what causes this rapid rise in colorectal cancer incidence rates,” he says.
This year more than 153,000 Americans will be diagnosed with colon cancer and 52,550 will die from the disease, the researchers note.
“If we were to raise colorectal cancer screening up to 80 percent, we estimated tens of thousands of cases could be averted, and thousands of lives could be saved,” he shares.
Your doctor can provide you with a fecal blood test or refer you for colonoscopy screening, Jemal says. The advantage of the colonoscopy is that it needs to be done only every 10 years, while the other should be done yearly.
Barriers to screening include being uninsured and not getting a recommendation for screening from a primary doctor, he says.
Can we expect a lower age for screening?
Even though younger adults are developing colon cancer, Jemal doesn’t anticipate the recommended age for screening will get lower.
“It is very unlikely because there will be a cost-benefit analysis and among all colorectal cancer cases that occur under age 50, 43 percent occur in ages 45 to 49. So it is very unlikely that it would have any benefit if we were to go to a younger age,” Jemal notes.
Dr. John Ricci, chief of colorectal surgery at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Great Neck, N.Y., says he treats many younger colon cancer patients nowadays.
“Where it used to be almost unheard of to see somebody in their 30s with colon cancer, now we’re seeing it fairly frequently, unfortunately,” Ricci shares.
