March is National Colon Cancer Awareness Month and colorectal cancer is on the rise among adults under 55. GI Alliance Gastroenterologist Doctor Charles Berggreen says more millennials develop abnormal growths called polyps in the ascending portion of the colon.
“The incidents of polyps in these young people are further up in the colon. In what we call the right side or higher side of the colon then typical polyps are which have always been more on the left side of the colon.”
Cancer rates in people younger than 50 years of age have been increasing by one percent to two percent a year since the mid-1990s, according to the American Cancer Society.
Berggreen says colorectal cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in men under 55. While it’s unknown why there is an uptick in colorectal cancer in adults under 55, Berggreen says it could be a variation of factors…
“It certainly may be a combination of environmental factors although we don’t know what those environmental factors maybe. It may be a nutritional factor. The way people eat is changing.”
The ACS estimates nearly 153 thousand new cases of colorectal cancer in 2024. Men will account for more than 81 thousand cases, and women will account for more than 71 thousand.
Berggreen says colorectal cancer is a very treatable and beatable disease. He says there are mail-in tests available to detect colon cancers, but the most effective method is getting a colonoscopy.
“The gold standard for screening is colonoscopy. There are other methods. There’s a combination of occult blood in genetic marker that you can get by collecting a stool sample called ColoGuard.”
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