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Younger Adults At Increased Risk For Colon Cancer
- March 24, 2025
- Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter
Colon cancers have been steadily increasing among people younger than 50, even as cases have declined among seniors.
That’s why guidelines now recommend that colon cancer screening start at 45, five years earlier than previously advised, Dr. Jennifer Davids, chief of colon and rectal surgery at Boston Medical Center, told HealthDay TV in an interview.
“So, 45 is the new 50, which is really important to know,” Davids said. “I fall into that age category, so I'm in the peer group that needs to catch up and make sure we're all on top of our screening.”
Davids is pressing the importance of screening as part of Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
Colon cancer rates increased by 2.4% a year among people younger than 50 between 2012 and 2021, according to the American Cancer Society.
Likewise, death rates in people under 55 have been increasing about 1% a year since the mid-2000s, the ACS said.
This increase in younger adults has occurred even though colon cancer cases and deaths have been steadily decreasing among people 55 and older, the ACS noted.
“What we're seeing is a really alarming trend where a disease that used to be considered that of middle-age or older individuals now is affecting people as young as their 20s, 30s, 40s,” Davids said. “Often those patients are presenting, thinking that their symptoms are due to stress or diet, and often they're presenting at a later stage requiring more intervention and more likelihood for surgery.”
Because of this, Davids urges younger adults to keep an eye out for potential symptoms of colon cancer, even if those symptoms are sometimes confusing.
A change in the frequency of bowel movements, a change in fecal consistency, difficulty passing stools, subtle changes with the frequency or feel of bowel movements, or finding blood in the stool or toilet bowl all might prompt one to check with a doctor, Davids said.
“Abdominal pain, bloating, fatigue, nausea, inability to eat in the normal way that you do, or unintentional weight loss would all be potential signs of concern for colorectal cancer,” Davids added.
“By the time an individual is having one or more of those symptoms, that suggests that cancer has progressed to the point where it's impacting the passage of stool, it's causing bleeding, or potentially leading to symptoms that could indicate spread,” she said.
“The key is early recognition of those symptoms and seeking medical attention with either your primary or a gastroenterologist or colorectal surgeon,” Davids said.
It’s also important for young adults to know their family’s history of cancer, which could play a role in whether they are at risk for colon cancer.
‘People don't tend to gather at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Sundays and talk about their colorectal cancer, colonoscopy results,” Davids said. “But it's important to do that because a lot of patients I'll have when I ask, do you have any family history? They don't know. They're afraid to ask. One of the biggest risk factors for colorectal cancer is a family history of either polyps or cancer.”
Once one comes of age for colon cancer screening, they will have the option of undergoing a colonoscopy once a decade, a CT colon scan every five years, or a stool test, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Stool tests looking for blood must be done once a year, and stool tests looking for DNA evidence of cancer once every three years.
“Colonoscopy is definitely still the gold standard, and the reason for that is it allows us to identify polyps and early cancers and remove them all in one setting,” Davids said.
“Colorectal cancer starts in the lining of the colon and rectum and then grows through the wall into the lymph nodes and then can spread systemically,” Davids added. “So the reason why colonoscopy is so effective is we find those polyps before they grow and mutate into cancers and we can remove them.”
So, she emphasized, the key is to identify polyps at an early stage.
"In some early cancers, treatment consists of a colonoscopy with removal alone,” Davids said. “We hope to get patients in early before cancer has spread to the point where a surgery is needed or even beyond that, unfortunately, where the disease could not be cured with surgery.”
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on colon cancer screening.
SOURCES: HealthDay TV, March 24, 2025; American Cancer Society, Jan. 16, 2025
