The share of colorectal cancer diagnoses among adults younger than 55 in the US has been rising since the 1990s, and no one knows why.
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are calling for more work to be done to understand, prevent and treat colorectal cancer at younger ages.
In a paper published [March 16] in the journal Science, the researchers, Dr. Marios Giannakis and Dr. Kimmie Ng, outlined a way for scientists to accelerate their investigations into the puzzling rise of colorectal cancer among younger ages, calling for more specialized research centers to focus on younger patients with the disease and for diverse populations to be included in studies on early-onset colorectal cancer.
Some of the factors known to raise anyone’s risk of colorectal cancer are having a family history of the disease, having a certain genetic mutation, drinking too much alcohol, smoking cigarettes or being obese.
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“They were established as risk factors in older cohorts of patients, but they do seem to be also associated with early-onset disease, and those are things like excess body weight, lack of physical activity, high consumption of processed meat and red meat, very high alcohol consumption,” said [researcher] Rebecca Siegel.
