Younger age groups are showing a “demonstrated continued increase” in colorectal cancer in younger age groups, according to a study published this month.
The research published in The Journal of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology found that lowering the screening age from 50 to 45 would result in over 15,000 fewer cases and 6,100 fewer deaths in Canada between 2025 and 2071.
“Opening the screening process up to folks in that age range means that they’ll be able to find these cancers earlier and they’ll be able to treat them and their likelihood of survival will increase,” said Brandon Purcell, advocacy manager of Prevention and Early Detection at the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS).
Colorectal cancer is the third-leading cause of death from cancer in both men and women in Canada, according to the CCS.
It is estimated that 1 in 17 Canadian men and 1 in 19 Canadian women will develop colorectal cancer in their lifetime.
Roughly 1 in 40 men and 1 in 42 women will die from it.
Most people diagnosed with colorectal cancer are over the age of 50, but the CCS urged a lower screening age in March.
Purcell said there is no full answer as to why there are increased cases in younger adults. “It’s frustrating,” he said.
Otto Sanchez, professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Ontario Tech University who specializes in cancer biology, said he welcomes the lower screening age and saw it coming.
“I have students here very worried about cancers that are, for example, there’s cancers that we know that young people would always get more, like thyroid cancer, testicular cancer,” Sanchez said. “Now younger people are more worried about breast cancer, colorectal cancer, which is crazy because that didn’t happen before.”
He said there are a lot more carcinogens in the environment today.
Carcinogens are any substances, agents or organisms like UV rays and tobacco smoke that cause cancer by damaging cellular DNA, causing mutations.
“We are exposed to many, many carcinogens and I think that over the decades we’ve been exposed more,” said Sanchez.
He said trends in smoking have been going down, with Canada having seven per cent active smokers, but instances in cancer have not been going down.
Now, they are looking at other things outside of tobacco like our environment, lifestyle habits and quality of food.
Purcell said about 45 per cent of colorectal cancers are preventable.
“It really is just simple stuff like having a good diet, refraining from smoking, keeping alcohol intake low and maintaining a good exercise,” said Purcell. “It can often sound simplistic but those good habits compound over a lifetime in the same way that bad habits do.”
Colorectal cancer screening can be done from the comfort of your own home.
A package is sent to your home, where you then take a sample using the fecal immunochemical test (FIT) provided, which you put into an envelope and send to the lab.
Purcell said the goal is to have 60 per cent of eligible Canadians participate in screenings, which is the goal for provinces to work towards. No provinces have yet met the goal.
As of now, no province has made any commitment to lower the screening age, but he says the provinces are approaching the idea with an open mind.
“We’re pretty optimistic that we’ll be seeing changes coming down the pipe,” said Purcell.