A recent American study revealed an increase in the number of people with colon cancer in the age groups under 55 years, most of which are advanced cases of the disease.
and colorectal cancer, according to mayo clinicIt is one of the types of cancer that begins in the large intestine (colon), and affects mainly older people, but it can appear at any age as well.
It usually begins as small, noncancerous (benign) clumps of cells that form inside the colon and, over time, may become malignant cancers.
Network indicates NBC Citing statistics from the American Cancer Society, the incidence of colorectal cancer among people under the age of 55 in the United States doubled between 1995 and 2019, from 11 percent to 20 percent.
This means that of the approximately 1.3 million people in the United States living with colorectal cancer, in 2019, about 273,800 were younger than 55.
A 2017 study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that people born after 1990 are twice as likely and four times more likely to develop colon cancer than people born in 1950.
The network says that “the numbers are escalating at an alarming rate.” A study published in 2021 in the journal “JAMA” estimated that in just seven years, colorectal cancer will be the leading cause of cancer deaths in people between the ages of 20 and 49.
The new stats also showed that advanced-stage disease diagnoses are increasing rapidly in all colorectal cases in the United States, with the rate jumping from 52 percent in the mid-2000s to 60 percent in 2019.
Dr. Kimi Ng, director of the Colorectal Cancer Center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, said in an interview that most cases diagnosed in young adults are advanced-stage cancers.
“This type of cancer is particularly asymptomatic and can stay that way for a long time,” said Dr. Follside May, assistant professor at the University of California School of Medicine.
May said that many young people are not aware that they can get colorectal cancer, and may not be able to correctly diagnose the symptoms.
She added, “When I was training in medicine, I learned that this is a disease of the elderly .. We are now learning that it now affects people in the prime of life.”
There is not enough evidence, so far, to confirm the reason for the increase in this disease among young people, and scientists believe that it is a group of environmental factors.
“It’s not just about diet and lifestyle, there’s something else… we see a lot of young patients with colorectal cancer who follow very healthy lifestyles and diets,” Ng said in the interview.
Genes play a role in increasing the risk of colon cancer, but they only account for about 25 percent of cases in young adults, according to Philip Dashner, director of the Cancer Immunology and Hematology Program at the National Cancer Institute.
“75 percent of these cases fall into this category of unknown cause,” he said.
May said the cause was a combination of environmental factors, but it was still not clear what environmental factors were at play, other than lifestyle and diet.
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