Colorectal cancer rates rise among young adults
July 28th, 2009 by Jennifer Walker-Journey
While overall colorectal cancer rates are steadily decreasing, colorectal cancer rates among younger patients are on the rise, according to data collected from the 13 Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) cancer registries nationwide and studied by the American Cancer Society.
When researchers looked at data from all patients, rates showed a decrease of 2.8 percent in men and 2.2 percent in women. But when data was narrowed to just patients ages 20 to 49, the rates increased 1.5 percent in men and 1.6 percent in women.
Researchers then broke the data down into 10-year age groups (20-29, 30-39, 40-49) and noticed an annual increase of 5.2 percent in men and 5.6 percent in women who were in their 20s. However, among the group under 50, the actual number of cases of colorectal cancer were higher among those ages 40-49.
People are recommended to begin colorectal screenings beginning at age 50, or earlier for people with a family history or with symptoms of colorectal cancer. Colon screenings are usually performed in an outpatient basis following bowel cleansing with the use of prescription or over-the-counter tablets or solutions.
Be advised that some products for bowel cleansing, namely oral sodium phosphate (OSP) such as Visicol and Osmo Prep, now fall under a black box warning as the use of the products increase one’s risk of a serious kidney injury known as acute phosphate nephropathy. OTC OSP products such as those made by C. B. Fleet also have been linked to the condition.
Source: Cortlandt Forum