There are rising cases of breast, colorectal and other cancers in people in their 20s, 30s and 40s. What is going on?

Over the past 10 years, rates of colorectal cancer among 25 to 49 year olds have increased in 24 different countries, including the UK, US, France, Australia, Canada, Norway and Argentina.

The investigation’s early findings, presented by an international team at the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) congress in Geneva in September 2024, were as eye-catching as they are concerning.

The researchers, from the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) International Agency for Research on Cancer, surveyed data from 50 countries to understand the trend. In 14 of these countries, the rising trend was only seen in younger adults, with older adult rates remaining stable.

Based on epidemiological investigations, it seems that this trend first began in the 1990s. One study found that the global incidence of early-onset cancer had increased by 79% between 1990 and 2019, with the number of cancer-related deaths in younger people rising by 29%. Another report in The Lancet Public Health described how cancer incidence rates in the US have steadily risen between the generations across 17 different cancers, particularly in Generation Xers and Millennials.

  • girlfreddyOPEnglish
    1·
    3 months ago

    According to the American Cancer Society’s 2024 stats cancer deaths are declining in some areas (ie: lung cancer) but increasing in many others.

    In 2024, 2,001,140 new cancer cases and 611,720 cancer deaths are projected to occur in the United States.

    • Cancer mortality continued to decline through 2021, averting over 4 million deaths since 1991 because of reductions in smoking, earlier detection for some cancers, and improved treatment options in both the adjuvant and metastatic settings.

    However, these gains are threatened by increasing incidence for 6 of the top 10 cancers.

    • Incidence rates increased during 2015–2019 by 0.6%–1% annually for breast, pancreas, and uterine corpus cancers and by 2%–3% annually for prostate, liver (female), kidney, and human papillomavirus-associated oral cancers and for melanoma.

    Incidence rates also increased by 1%–2% annually for cervical (ages 30–44 years) and colorectal cancers (ages <55 years) in young adults. Colorectal cancer was the fourth-leading cause of cancer death in both men and women younger than 50 years in the late-1990s but is now first in men and second in women.

    • Progress is also hampered by wide persistent cancer disparities; compared to White people, mortality rates are two-fold higher for prostate, stomach and uterine corpus cancers in Black people and for liver, stomach, and kidney cancers in Native American people. Source
    • acosmichippo@lemmy.worldEnglish
      22·
      3 months ago

      you’re conflating mortality metrics with incidence metrics. increasing incidents are very likely biased by improved detection and reporting.

      anyway the point is not that cancer is going away or anything, but that you can’t easily say “pollution is giving young people cancer” as the top comment is.

      • girlfreddyOPEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Both mortality and incidence rates are included in what I quoted.