ALERT: Dramatic Rise in Colorectal Cancer Seen in Children and Young Adults 

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.