Gastrointestinal cancers, which include colorectal cancer, stomach and pancreas, increase considerably in young adults, although doctors do not fully know why. Even some of the possible causes require more research, they say.
According to a review published Thursday in Jama, gastrointestinal cancers have become the fastest type of cancer diagnosed in adults under 50 years of age
The journal, one of the most complete looks at gastrointestinal cancer trends, summed up the results of the major international databases and the United States of Cancer, plus 115 articles on gastrointestinal cancers published from January 2014 to March 2025.
The authors highlight the need for people to follow screening guidelines for colorectal cancer, who suggest that people with an average risk are starting to detect – generally a colonoscopy or stool test – at 45. Since doctors do not regularly depress pancreatic cancers, stomach and esophageal in the United States, the authors also call for new ways to detect more people for these cancers.
“This really highlights the importance of trying to improve screening and early detection,” said Dr. Kimmie NG, co-author of the review and director of the Corectal Cancer Center of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
According to the journal, colorectal cancer is by far the most common early gastrointestinal cancer, with nearly 185,000 cases reported worldwide in 2022 and nearly 21,000 cases reported the same year in American diagnostics in the United States have increased by 2% per year in people under 50 since 2011, according to American Cancer Society.
“This was never happening in this age group, and now a very significant increase in 20, 30 and 40 years old obtains colon cancer,” said Dr. John Marshall, chief medical consultant to the non -profit cancer alliance alliance, which was not involved in research. In one of the most publicized examples, actor Chadwick Boseman was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2016 and died of the disease four years later at the age of 43.
According to the new study. Previous research has shown a disproportionate part of these gastrointestinal cancer diagnoses were part of the black and Hispanic people. Pancreas cancer is among the deadliest forms of cancer, with only 13% of patients surviving five years after their diagnosis.
Because colorectal cancer is the most common, doctors said they had a better understanding of what could contribute to these early cases compared to others.
“If we can understand what’s going on in Colorectal [cancer]I think that would really provide a lot of advice to help us understand the other cancers in the gastrointestinal tract, “said Dr. Scott Kopetz, professor of gastrointestinal medical oncology at Texas University MD ANDERSON.
Kopetz said there are probably several factors stimulating the increase in early early cases.
“The main theory is that there is no single theory,” he said.
NG’s new review in Jama suggests that most gastrointestinal cancers in people under the age of 50 are associated with lifestyle factors such as obesity, lack of exercise, poor diet, smoking or alcohol consumption. A study included in the journal revealed that women who consumed more sugary drinks in adolescence had a higher risk of developing anticipated colorectal cancer.
“This is really what people were doing or exposed when they were infants, children, adolescents who probably contribute to their risk of developing cancer as a young adult,” said NG.
The Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., expressed the association between sugary drinks and health problems, including cancer. On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said that Coca-Cola will begin to be manufactured with cane sugar rather than corn syrup in the United States, but that the company did not engage in the change when it was questioned on this subject by NBC News.
Marshall said that he suspects that the increase in early colorectal cancer could have something to do with changes in the intestinal microbiomas of people – bacteria that live in our gastrointestinal leaflets. The diet, the use of antibiotics, microplastics and exposure to environmental chemicals probably influence all the intestinal bacteria of a person, but scientists still do not have a clear understanding of what a healthy microbiome or how it affects our health. It is a booming area of research.
The NG journal also revealed that 15% to 30% of people with early gastrointestinal cancer bear hereditary genetic mutations which may have predisposed them to obtain cancer at a young age. For this reason, she said: “We recommend that all young patients diagnosed under the age of 50 are testing tests for hereditary conditions.”
The overall survival rates for gastrointestinal cancers have improved over time, due to improvements in treatment and screening. But NG’s review has revealed that younger patients often have lower results, generally despite more treatments, including more surgery, radiotherapy and aggressive chemotherapy combinations, she said.
One of the reasons may be that primary care physicians can ignore symptoms such as abdominal pain, constipation, stomach burns or reflux in younger patients, thus delaying their diagnoses.
“My personal feeling is that it is because we find them at a more advanced stage, because people do not really think of colon cancers or other GIs when they see a young person with these non-specific complaints,” said Dr Howard Hochster, director of gastrointestinal oncology at the Rutgers Cancer Institute and Rwjbarnabas Health in New Jersey.
But NG said that even after checking the stage to which patients are diagnosed, young people still seem to have worse survival rates.
“This makes us ask us as researchers if it means that cancers that develop in young people can be biologically different and more aggressive, or perhaps less sensitive to treatment,” she said.
