Deaths from rectal cancer are rising rapidly among younger adults, an alarming trend that is confounding scientists trying to understand why millennials are so hard-hit.

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“The rate of rectal cancer seems to be increasing more than two to three times compared to colon cancer,” said Mythili Menon Pathiyil, lead author of a new study and a gastroenterology fellow at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York.

If the trend continues, rectal cancer deaths will exceed the number of colon cancer deaths — alreadythe nation’s No. 1 cause of cancer deathin people under age 50 — by 2035.

According to the American Cancer Society, 158,850 new colorectal cancers will be diagnosed in 2026. About 55,230 patients will die from the disease, with nearly a third of those deaths in people under age 65. Colon cancer and rectal cancer are similar but form in different parts of the digestive tract.

The new research, which hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, is scheduled to be presented at Digestive Disease Week, an annual meeting of gastroenterologists, in May.

The findings, however, strengthen anAmerican Cancer Society studyreleased in March showing that a rise in rectal cancer rates is driving increases in colorectal cancer diagnoses in people younger than age 65. Colorectal cancer rates have been increasing 3% each year for adults under age 50 since the late 1990s and scientists arescrambling to understand why.

“This is a medical crisis,” Dr. Ben Schlechter, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, said. “This is not something that should be ignored.” Schlechter was not involved with the new study.

Pathiyil’s research used Centers for Disease Control and Prevention death records from 1999 through 2023, specifically for people ages 20 to 44. Deaths from early-onset colorectal cancer overall rose throughout that time period, with the rate of rectal cancer deaths accelerating the most: up to three times faster.

Hispanic adults saw the steepest rise in rectal cancer deaths, according to the study, and had the fastest-growing mortality rates of any demographic group.

Source: Drudge Report