Health and Medicine
PUBLISHED
According to a new report by the American Cancer Society (ACS), colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death for people under the age of 50 in the US. Experts are now urging people to keep an eye out for some easily ignored symptoms.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Colorectal cancer – the collective term for colon cancer and rectal cancer – is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer type in the US and is second leading cause of cancer-related death. The disease is considered highly treatable when it is detected early and is often preventable.
This is for two reasons. Firstly, many cases develop slowly from detectable and easily removeable precancerous growths (known as adenomatous polyps). Secondly, the chances of developing this cancer can be substantially lowered by living a healthy lifestyle, such as improving your diet, maintaining a healthy weight, exercising, and avoiding tobacco.
According to the ACS, around 158,850 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed in the US this year alone, and the disease will kill around 55,230 people. The disease seems to occur more or less evenly across the sexes, with one in 25 men and one in 26 women developing it.
For a long time, colorectal cancer was considered a disease of older people, but it is now increasingly common among younger adults. The ACS’s new analysis shows that, although the incidence of the disease has declined slightly in the overall population, colorectal cancer cases among adults between 20 and 49 years of age are rising by 3 percent each year. This rise has been gradually occurring since 2004, while rates among adults over 65 years of age have been decreasing since 2012.
The authors of the new report warn that this trend has implications for the future.
“The landscape of [colorectal cancer] in the United States is changing rapidly. Mortality is now increasing in adults younger than 65 years alongside incidence, confirming an increase in the underlying risk of [colorectal cancer] in individuals born after circa 1950,” they explain in their paper.
“As these generations age, the [colorectal cancer] burden in these cohorts will continue to swell like a tsunami moving through time”.
Colorectal cancer symptoms can be tricky to identify, but experts urge people to pay attention to changes in their bowel habits, especially if they experience persistent changes such as diarrhea, constipation, or narrowing stools. Blood in the stool is another important symptom, along with abdominal pain or cramping.
The chances of developing colorectal cancer can be impacted by various factors, some that are controllable and some that are not. In addition to aging, those with a family history of colorectal cancer or colon polyps have an increased risk of developing it. The same is true for people with inheritable conditions such as Lynch syndrome or familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and MYH-associated polyposis.
In the US, people with Native American and Alaska Native heritages have the highest risk of developing colorectal cancer, followed by African Americans. People who have inflammatory bowel disease, such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, can also have a higher chance of developing it.
Within the wider population, however, lifestyle choices play a significant role in contributing to the disease. Improving your diet, getting exercise, and avoiding smoking are important ways to lower the chances of developing this cancer. The authors of the new report urge people to take the symptoms seriously and to seek medical advice. They also recommend that screening efforts aimed at people of 45 years of age be initiated more broadly.
“Risk can also be mitigated through educational campaigns to increase awareness of red flag symptoms for the disease (rectal bleeding, abdominal pain, diarrhea, iron-deficiency anemia) among clinicians and the general public to facilitate earlier detection and timely treatment, and also to help destigmatize the disease,” they write.
Finally, the team stress the need to address the needs of younger people who receive treatment, especially as some treatments can lead to reproductive and sexual health side effects.
The study is published in CA: A Cancer Journal For Clinicians.
