A global epidemic of cancer among people younger than 50 could be emerging
Iana dos Reis Nunes was 43 when she told her husband that she could feel something like a bubble in her abdomen when she lay on her side. An ultrasound scan found spots on her liver, which led to blood tests and a colonoscopy. “There was a tumor the size of your fist, and she had no pain and no problems with bowel movements or anything like that,” recalled Brendan Higgins, her husband, who works as an artist in New York City. By the time doctors found it, dos Reis Nunes’ colon cancer had spread.
Studies show that about 1 in 10 colorectal cancers in the US is diagnosed in someone who is between the ages of 20 and 50. The younger you are, the higher the risk Ogino’s review found something called a cohort effect, meaning the risk of an early-onset cancer has increased for each successive group of people born at a later time. Those born the 1990s have a higher risk of developing an early-onset cancer in their lifetime than those born in the 1980s, for example.