2024-01-19 21:00:00
Doctors are worried. A report of the American Cancer Society published Wednesday January 17 warns of the scale of the number of colon and rectal cancers among young adults. The results, which reflect data taken from the American population, indicate that colorectal cancer is now the deadliest cancer in men under 50. It reaches second place among women under 50, behind that of the breast. However, around fifty years ago, it only occupied fourth place as a cause of death from cancer among men and women under 50.
Usually, cancers affect people over the age of 50 more. For example in France, almost 2 out of 3 cancers occur in individuals aged 75 and over. On the other hand, the American report shows that the share of 50-64 year olds among those newly diagnosed has increased, from 25% in 1995 to 30% today.
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Asked by NBC Newsthe cancer doctor Kimmie Ng confirms that these results converge with his own observations with patients. She explains: “For several decades now, we have noticed that the patients who come to our clinic seem younger and younger.” The doctor William Dahut, scientific director of the American Cancer Society, also deplores that young adults tend to be diagnosed at later stages, where the disease is more aggressive. More present and more vivid, colorectal cancer in young people is often “more difficult to treat”according to him.
How to explain it?
At present, doctors have still not found the reasons for this increasing incidence of colorectal cancer in young adults. Several hypotheses have been put forward, establishing a correlation between this increase and those in the obesity rate and sedentary behaviors. But seeing her patients, Dr. Kimmie Ng remains skeptical, indicating that they “rarely fit this profile”. She adds: “A lot of them are triathletes and marathon runners, very healthy people.”
For her, it is more a combination of environmental factors that should be suspected. Due to their difficult to measure impacts on our immune systems, these factors might increase susceptibility to cancer from a very young age.
In addition to the ordeal represented by the fight once morest cancer in itself, it has the particularity of occurring, among the youngest, at pivotal moments in life. Young adults are overall less covered by health insurance than those over 65 and more likely to have to juggle family and professional career. Dr Dahut also argues that “Men and women diagnosed at a younger age have a longer life expectancy and are therefore at greater risk of treatment-related side effects, such as second cancers.”
This is particularly what Sierra Fuller, 33, experienced, tell NBC News how did the discovery of his stage 3 colorectal cancer caused a shock in his life and that of those close to him. She and her husband were planning a future with a child, but the news turned everything upside down. About a year later, Sierra Fuller is cancer-free but requires regular checkups and blood tests. She’s better, but “will always have this worry” to see the disease reappear.
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