(The Canadian Press/ CTV News) — The incidence of colorectal cancer has been rising in people under the age of 45 for the past 30 years, according to a report released during Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month.
Experts are at a loss to explain the increase, but diet, inflammation and the microbiome, or a combination of all three, may be involved.
“Last night I operated on a young lady in her 30s who came in with blocked colorectal cancer,” said Dr. Carole Richard, chief of digestive surgery at Montreal’s CHUM hospital centre. “The average age of a colorectal cancer diagnosis is 62 or 63. At the CHUM, where we treat more than 300 cases per year, we have gone from 10.7 per cent of cases involving individuals under 50 in 2006 to 16.9 per cent in 2020.” (…)