Health
ALERT: Dramatic Rise in Colorectal Cancer Seen in Children and Young Adults
Colorectal cancer rates surge in under-45s, including young adults and children, sparking concern and further research.
United States: For decades, colorectal cancer rates have been soaring in those who are very young for routine screening checkups.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data, routine screening is recommended every ten years, which begins at the age of 45, where the new research focus on rates of the disease in children and adults whose ages are 10 to 44.
The research has found that the cases of colorectal cancer have been rising among all age groups.
Dr. Islam Mohamed, an internal medicine resident physician at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who is also the leader of the research, said, “It means that there is a trend,” and, “We don’t know what to make of it yet, it could be lifestyle factors or genetics, but there is a trend.”
More about the finding
These findings, which are yet to be published in peer-reviewed journals, are to be presented at the Digestive Disease Week conference in Washington, DC often referred to as the scientific and professional congress for the field of gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition, later this month.
Even though this figure included all the increases, the percentage of cases accounting for people younger than 40 is still small. However, in the people of ages below 30, there was just two cases discovered.
However, since the base rates are so low, increases in those rates may seem disproportionally significant.
As the examination confirmed, colon cancer rates in children aged 10-14 jumped up from 0 to the most significant extent. There have been major strides in measuring the infectivity, as the same 1 case per 100,000 in 1999 now stands at less than 1 per Million in 2019. Incredible, which is to have increased 16 times during the period of ten years.
The increase in the rate of suicide may seem small in comparison to 2010, that is, 0.006 per hundred 100,000 population in 2020, which is a jump of 500 percent compared to a rate of 0.002 per hundred 100,000 back in 2010. Opposingly, youth aged 15–19 were seriously assailed, as it almost tripled and reached 300 percent.
Dr. Folasade May, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles Vatche and Tamar Manoukian Division of Digestive Diseases, said, “When you are starting off with a very rare disease in 15-year-olds, and you add a couple of cases, you are going to have a huge percentage increase,” as NBC News reported.
Increasing cancer rates in people over 25
While the rates were lower for people over 25, they started with a higher base level rate in 1999 compared to the younger age groups. Whereas the most significant increase was seen among those older than 25, people of this age range experienced a slightly but still highly positive trend.
The age group of 40 to 44 years was the youngest one, which was just not organized for the routine screening. Their number increased by 45% higher than before; it was 15 cases in 100,000 people that rose to about 21 per 100,000 in 2020.
May said, “We can see that the disease is associated with aging; the risk of polyps growing increases as one ages, as well as the risk of cancer as with the growth of the polyps,” as NBC News reported.
May argued that the fact that the biggest increase in the number of cases belonged to the group of patients who were at least 65 years old was positive since this group had the biggest number of cases at the beginning. The data can’t be replaced as it plays a significant role, she clarified.
May added, “Anybody who is 15 to 19 years old getting a colorectal cancer diagnosis is bad,” as NBC News reported.
United States: The World Health Organization said on Friday that it had approved its first shot of vaccines against the mpox for use in adults, saying that it is a progression toward eradicating the disease in Africa.
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This approval is significant for organizations like Vaccines Alliance Gavi and UNICEF as they can now purchase it from Bavarian Nordic A/S.
Buying supplies is, however, a challenge since the product is manufactured by only one company.
According to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “This first (authorization) of a vaccine against mpox is an important step in our fight against the disease, both in the context of the current outbreaks in Africa and in future,” ABC News reported.
Previously, the UN health agency endorsed the two-dose mpox vaccine targeting the adult population who are 18 years and above. As for WHO, even though they did not advise the use of the vaccine for people below the age of 18, in particular cases, vaccines can be given to infants, children, and adolescents “in outbreak settings where the benefits of vaccination outweigh the potential risks.”
What more has the WHO recommended?
The WHO has also pointed out that it has been making an “access and allocation mechanism” to execute an even and fair distribution of mpox tests, treatments, and vaccines to the countries that need them most.
Mpox Vaccine Breakthrough: Hope for Global Eradication. Credit | Reuters
WHO has suggested that a dose could be split in the event that there is a shortage of the vaccine since one dose was proven to be 50 percent effective, and it is important to gather more information on the efficacy of the vaccine when used as a single shot.
About the vaccine
The Bavarian Nordic mpox vaccine was earlier named and approved by several developed countries in Europe and North America during the mpox outbreak in the year 2022.
In millions of adults, doses have proven that the vaccine assists in decelerating the virus distribution, but little is known about children.
Director-general of the Africa Center for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that seventy percent of the patients are below the age of 15 in Congo, where the outbreak is most severe, and children under the age of 15 are the majority of fatalities at 85 percent.
However, the WHO noted that more than 120 countries had confirmed more than 103 thousand legion cases of mpox since the start of the outbreak two years ago, ABC News reported.
As of Sunday, it recorded 723 people in well over a dozen countries in Africa have perished from the disease.
United States: The World Trade Center Health Program has been covering the medical expenses for cancer, respiratory ailments, mental health conditions, and musculoskeletal disorders linked to work at the site ever since it was established by an act of Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2011.
More around the news
Recently, researchers have started to look into cognitive impairment and dementia afflicting first responders at rates far higher than in the general population.
The study findings are urging healthcare providers to be more expressive regarding lobbying the World Trade Center Health Program, which is overseen by the CDC, to include dementia among the illnesses covered.
What more are the experts stating?
According to Benjamin Luft, the director of a program at Stony Brook University that cares for and monitors the health of first responders, “I’m hoping they will,” and “They have a systematic process in which they evaluate the scientific data. We’ve spent a huge amount of time and effort to establish that exposure to the neurotoxins and dust could cause these problems, and so should be eligible for coverage,” the Washington Post reported.
9/11 Dust Exposure Linked to 14x Higher Dementia Risk. Credit | AP
Lust has been working as a senior author of a study whose findings were published this summer and involved more than five thousand respondents who regularly undergone tests for over a decade.
They found that the ones with maximum exposure to the dust, as well as neurotoxic debris at the WTC, would have fourteen times more chances of becoming infected with dementia before the age of 65.
As per Ray Dorsey, a professor of neurology at the University of Rochester, the small-sized ordinary dust particles, which are termed fine particulate matter, could enter the nose and reach the brain to cause damage, the Washington Post reported.
However, as Dorsey said, “The nose is the front door to our brain,” and “Dust and chemicals set up shop in the small area of our brain, then spread to the parts of the brain important for memory.”
United States: A drug has recently received approval for the treatment of obesity in adults and teenagers. It has been proven to be efficient for kids starting from the age of six when taken together with the necessary lifestyle changes – a new study found.
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A medication called liraglutide, used in adults with obesity, reduced body mass, attenuated weight gain, and enhanced favorable biomarkers in children aged between six and eleven years, research reported in a medical conference on Tuesday, and to the New England Journal of Medicine, ABC News reported.
Following the trial, the company that manufactures the drug, Novo Nordisk, has sought permission from the US authorities to apply the medication in children in that age bracket, the spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Should the medication be approved, it would be the first treatment for the kind of obesity experienced by over 20 percent of kids in the age group of 6 through 11 in the United States, according to the US CDC.
FDA Approves Controversial Childhood Obesity Drug. Credit | Shutterstock
What do the study results show?
According to Dr. Claudia Fox, a pediatric obesity expert at the University of Minnesota, who led the study, “To date, children have had virtually no options for treating obesity,” and “They have been told to ‘try harder’ with diet and exercise,” ABC News reported.
Like most drugs with antiemetic properties, side effects include gastrointestinal effects in those administered the drug, including nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, among others.
However, physicians and parents would have to research those risks and the absence of knowledge about the safety of employing such drugs in young children.
According to Dr. Melissa Crocker, a pediatric obesity specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital, “Having a medication for that age group, if approved, would be a really nice tool to have, but we’re also going to have to be careful about how widely we start using it,” ABC News reported.
FDA Approves Controversial Childhood Obesity Drug. Credit | Adobe Stock
“And I would answer that differently at six than I would at 11,” she added.
About Liraglutide
Liraglutide belongs to a class of drugs known as GLP-1s, which currently boast some of the biggest-selling drugs in the world, such as Wegovy and Mounjaro.
The medications make them resemble hormones that control hunger, feelings of being full or satiated, and digestion. Although this drug is given as a daily injection, it has been approved under the name of Victoza as a treatment for diabetes in adults and in children that are at least ten years of age and for Saxenda under the treatment of obesity affecting adults and children aged between 12 to 17 years.
The new study, also funded by Novo Nordisk, enrolled 82 children with a mean age of 10 and a baseline weight of 70kgs or 154. 2 pounds. In this sample, the average starting BMI was 31, categorizing the childhood population as obese or overweight.
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