Colon cancer drops in Americans over 50, increases in younger people
Staff Writer |
In some good news for older Americans, a new report shows that colorectal cancer rates among those over 50 fell 32 percent since 2000, while deaths from the disease fell by 34 percent.
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Those declines are likely due to increased screening, which can prevent colorectal cancer by detecting and removing precancerous polyps, according to the report released March 1 by the American Cancer Society (ACS).
Among older adults, colorectal cancer rates are dropping fastest in those aged 65 and older, and for tumors located in the distal colon (the last part of the colon). The drop is slowest among those aged 50 to 64 and for rectal tumors, the researchers found.
For example, there was a 9 percent decline in the incidence of rectal tumors in men aged 50 to 64 and no decline among women in the same age group. But those rates dropped 38 percent in men and 41 percent in women who were over 65.
Every state saw a drop in colorectal cancer rates among people aged 50 and older, with a decline of more than 5 percent a year seen between 2009 and 2013 in seven states: California, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Rhode Island and South Dakota.
The slowest declines were seen in states with the highest rates of colorectal cancer: Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi, according to the ACS report, which is published every three years.
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And this may portend an overall increase in colon and rectal cancer in the years to come, the study authors said, adding that an old foe might be to blame - the obesity epidemic.
People born in 1990 now have double the risk of colon cancer and four times the risk of rectal cancer, compared with those born around 1950 when the risk was lowest, the researchers said.
"The increase in these rates coincides with the obesity epidemic," said lead researcher Rebecca Siegel, strategic director for surveillance information services at the American Cancer Society.
"What might be going on is that the same factors that caused the increase in obesity - like changing dietary habits and a more sedentary lifestyle - are also risk factors for colon and rectal cancer," she suggested.
These cancers were once largely confined to people in their late 50s and older. In the early 1990s, rates of colon and rectal cancer among people 50 to 54 were half those of people 55 to 59.
But by 2012-2013, the rates for younger Americans were just 12 percent lower for colon cancer and equal for rectal cancer, Siegel said.
In 2013, about 10,400 cases of colon and rectal cancer were diagnosed in people in their 40s, and 12,800 cases were diagnosed in people in their early 50s, she said. ■
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