The Independent – More young adults in the U.S. are getting cancer, and experts don’t know why.
A dozen forms of the disease have risen among Americans under the age of 50 over the last decade, according to doctors, with the largest surges in female breast cancer and colorectal cancer.
Oncologists have found that this surge disproportionately affects women with rates of new diagnoses 82 percent higher than in men, according to a January report from American Cancer Society.
The concerning trends come even as overall cancer deaths have plummeted, dropping by 34 percent between 1991 and 2022.
“This is serious and worrisome,” Dr. Shari Goldfarb, a breast cancer doctor at New York City’s Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center, said in a statement.
Colorectal cancer and others are being diagnosed more frequently in young American adults. That trend comes even as overall cancer deaths have fallen
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Breast, uterine, kidney, and colorectal cancer have all been diagnosed more frequently in young adults over the last decade, according to National Institutes of Health research.
A separate study, from institutions across the U.S., reported a 50 percent relative increase in colorectal cancer rates in younger adults between 2021 and 2022 that came after the recommended screening age was lowered from 50 to 45.
Expanded screening and better detection may offer two explanations for more “early-onset” cases — referring to those in people under 50 — but doctors say there have to be additional explanations.
Some oncologists say they’ve already ruled out genetics.
“Our genome just doesn’t change so quickly over several decades,” Dr. Ulrike Peters, of Seattle’s Fred Hutch Cancer Center, told the National Cancer Institute.
There are also indications that at least colorectal cancer can behave differently in younger people, Dr. Rihab Yassin, of the institute’s Division of Cancer Biology, noted. It has physical characteristics associated with aggressive tumors, for example, and colorectal cancer death rates have surged …
