Predicting a Family History of Colorectal Cancer: Early Prediction and Remediation Strategies for Survivorship (Extended Abstract)
“They have young families and so much of their life ahead of them. I encourage patients who are 45 years old and older to get screened. “I also encourage people to let their doctor know if they have a family history of colon cancer. There is genetic testing we can do to identify some at-risk patients early before they develop cancer.”
Dahut said that they aren’t trying to blame anyone for their cancer diagnosis. When you have a disease like colorectal cancer, it can be hard to not think that something diet related is possible when there is a short period of time.
The new report also says that more people are surviving colorectal cancer, with the relative survival rate at least five years after diagnosis rising from 50% in the mid-1970s to 65% from 2012 through 2018, partly due to advancements in treatment.
According to Dahut, the best way to reduce your risk is to follow screening guidelines and get a stool-based test or a visual exam if it is recommended. Any suspicious polyps can be removed during a visual exam, reducing your risk of cancer.
Prevalence of colorectal cancer in the United States and beyond: a new study from the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The age to commence screening was recently lowered to 45 and we still need to understand why we are seeing an increase which is something we are actively looking into.
Researchers at the American Cancer Society analyzed the information from the National Cancer Institute and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to create the new report.
“We know rates are increasing in young people, but it’s alarming to see how rapidly the whole patient population is shifting younger, despite shrinking numbers in the overall population,” Rebecca Siegel, senior scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the report, said in a news release. “The trend toward more advanced disease in people of all ages is also surprising and should motivate everyone 45 and older to get screened.”
Some regions of the United States appeared to have higher rates of colorectal cancers and deaths than others. The rates were highest in the South and Midwest, but lowest in the West. The incidence of colorectal cancer ranged from 27 cases per 100,000 people in Utah to 46.5 per 100,000 in Mississippi. Colorectal cancer death rates ranged from about 10 per 100,000 people in Connecticut to 17.6 per 100,000 in Mississippi.
The Center for Young Onset Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s co-director said in an email that the findings highlighted the importance of colorectal cancer screening.
“Until we understand more, it is important that patients and providers recognize these symptoms so they can be evaluated promptly,” she said. “And, if you are at an age to get screened, please get screened.”
She noticed that she felt more tired than usual, and that she sometimes had to use the restroom with blood in her stool. She even went to the hospital one day when her symptoms were severe, she said, and she was told it might be a stomach ulcer before being sent home.
Getting a diagnosis of colon cancer young age mysteries: My mom and I went to the doctor, and I cried and I was so shocked by her diagnosis
That was around the time of Boseman’s death. I remember watching him on the news, and he had the same symptoms, so I died from colon cancer at the age of 43.
Changing her diet would help, according to Lawson. She stopped eating certain red meats and ate more fruits and vegetables. She believed that her new diet had caused her to lose a lot of weight.
“When I went and I saw my gastro, she said, ‘I’m sorry, I have bad news. We see something. We sent it to be tested. It looks like it is cancer.’ My whole world just kind of blanked out,” Lawson said. I was just so shocked that I got a diagnosis of this, I was a healthy 35-year-old woman with my daughter.
The former middle school teacher had several surgeries and received radiation therapy and chemotherapy to treat her cancer. She is now being monitored closely by her doctors.
“I remember crying through chemotherapy sessions and the medicine making you so weak, and my daughter was 4, and having to be strong for her,” she said. If you see symptoms or see something not right, my advice to you is to go check it out. You don’t really want to go to see the doctor, you’re losing a lot of weight.
Signs and symptoms of colorectal cancer include changes in bowel habits, rectal bleeding or blood in the stool, cramping or abdominal pain, weakness and fatigue, and weight loss.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/health/colorectal-cancer-young-age-mystery/index.html
What is the Role of Genetic Mutations in Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer? A Case Study of Lawson’s Surgery
There’s probably more than just one cause, said Lawson’s surgeon, Dr. Steven Lee-Kong, chief of colorectal surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.
Karnes, of UCI Health, said “it is unlikely” that there has been an increase in the genetic mutations that raise the risk of colorectal cancer, “although, as expected, the percentage of colorectal cancers caused by such mutations, e.g., Lynch syndrome, is more common in people with young-onset colorectal cancer.”
“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 Rebecca Siegel, a cancer epidemiologist and senior scientific director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society, who was lead author of this month’s report.
“We know that excessive weight increases your risk, and we know that body weight has gone up in this country,” she said. “And that is contributing to more cancer for a lot of cancers and also for colorectal cancer. Does it explain the increase that we are seeing? No, it doesn’t.”
Many of the people who are being diagnosed with cancer at a younger age are not obese, such as Broadway actor Quentin Oliver Lee, who died last year after being diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.
Most of these patients are very healthy, that is what I hear anecdotally from conferences I have attended. They’re not obese; they’re very active,” Siegel said, which adds to the mystery.
He thinks the diet, lifestyle and environment are factors that are most likely to play a factor in the increased incidence of inflammatory bowel disease.
If someone has a colon cancer that develops in 10 to 15 years, it’s difficult to determine the cause of the rise of cases younger than that.
“However, other factors may exist,” he said, adding that he has noticed “an increasing frequency of being shocked” by discoveries of colorectal cancer in his younger patients.
“I think younger people are on average consuming less healthy food – fast food, processed snacks, processed sugars – and I think that those foods also contain higher concentrations of carcinogens and mutagens, in addition to the fact that they are very fattening,” Dormady said.
“It’s well-publicized that child, adolescent, young adult obesity is rampant, if not epidemic, in our country,” he said. “And whenever a person is at an unhealthy weight, especially at a young age, which is when the cells are most susceptible to DNA damage, it really starts the ball rolling in the wrong direction.”
Why are we seeing this more and more in younger people if they are biologically the same? she said. The majority of patients don’t have a family history or a genetic predisposition so they are not likely to have a genetic abnormality.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/24/health/colorectal-cancer-young-age-mystery/index.html
The Rise of the Cosmic Microwave Background Temperature and the Number of Black Holes in the United States is Still a Small Population
That rise “has been something that’s been on our radar, and it has been increasing since the 1990s,” Mendelsohn said. “And even though it is increasing, the numbers are still small. So it’s still a small population.”