- Spike in colorectal cancer rates among younger Americans
- Not due to earlier detection and diagnoses -> mortality rates are rising from previous decades
“This is not merely a phenomenon of picking up more small cancers… There is something else going on that’s truly important.”
Dr. Thomas Weber, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/well/live/more-young-people-are-dying-of-colon-cancer.html
- Researchers are not exactly sure why, but there are speculations:
- There is a study that found prolonged antibiotics use in adulthood to be associated with greater risk for precancerous polyps -> antibiotics alter gut bacteria
- Younger people have polyps that are harder to see and remove during colonoscopies
- Policy changes?
- Expanding universal screening -> more controversial and costly -> question: are we making young people go thru screening for no reason?
- Frequent complications from. colonoscopies -> other testing options encouraged
- Concerns over false positives and negatives
- Reflections/questions:
- The statistics and findings of the new study reflect higher death rates rather than just earlier detection and diagnosis, which challenge the common, long-held myth that cancer is a disease of the old, which is explored often in our class readings, specifically Jain’s book.
- In the context of screening and detection, the article raises the importance of screening for younger generations and new risk factors previously unknown to the common population.
- How can we examine the issue of earlier screening and factor in young people’s increasing burden of cancer?
