 MONDAY, Jan. 25, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Colon cancer rates are rising among men and women under 50, the age at which guidelines recommend screenings start, a new analysis shows.  (Reuters Health) - One in seven colon and rectal cancers in the U.S. are now diagnosed in patients younger than age 50, which is when people are advised to begin routine screenings for these tumors, a new study finds. “Colorectal cancer has traditionally been thought of as a disease of the elderly; this study is really a wake-up call to the medical community that a relatively large number of colorectal cancers are occurring in young people,” said senior study author Dr. Samantha Hendren of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. "This study is really a wake-up call to the medical community that a relatively large number of colon cancers are occurring in people under 50," she added. Because these symptoms may be nonexistent, mild, or infrequent, many people are not aware of their condition until their malignancy becomes advanced and spreads into the lymph nodes. Signs of colorectal cancer, often called the “symptomless cancer,” include anemia, a dramatic change in the size or frequency of bowel movements, and dark blood or blood mixed with stool, (sometimes appearing as black threads), in bowel movements. There are guidelines for screening some people starting at age 40 if they have a family history of colorectal cancer, noted Dr. Sidney Winawer of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. For the study, Hendren and her colleagues culled federal government data on nearly 260,000 patients diagnosed with colon cancer between 1998 and 2011. Researchers analyzed cancer registry data from 1998 to 2011 for about 258,000 patients with colorectal tumors and found that 37,847 of them, or almost 15 percent, were diagnosed before age 50. With tumors that spread to the lymph nodes, five-year survival rates were 76 percent for young people and 70 percent for older patients, while with cancers that metastasized to other organs the survival odds were 21 percent versus 14 percent, respectively. With regard to localized disease, the five-year survival rate was 95.1 percent for younger patients versus 91.9 percent for older patients, with regard to regional disease, 76 percent versus 70.3 percent, and with regard to distant disease 21.3 percent versus 14.1 percent. Even though patients diagnosed younger tended to have more aggressive disease, they also lived slightly longer without tumors returning after their initial course of treatment. Colorectal Cancer Outcomes and Treatment Patterns in Patients Too Young for Average-Risk Screening. These findings raise the question of whether screening for colon cancer should begin at an earlier age, Hendren said. More information 
 
 Visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute for more on colon cancer.
– A new study says one in seven US colon cancer patients is younger than 50—raising questions about why more young people seem to be getting the disease and what can be done about it, reports HealthDay via the Philadelphia Inquirer. "Colon cancer has traditionally been thought of as a disease of the elderly," says lead author Samantha Hendren. "This study is really a wake-up call to the medical community that a relatively large number of colon cancers are occurring in people under 50." Using government data on almost 260,000 colon-cancer patients from 1998 to 2011, the study also says younger patients more often have advanced cancer and undergo surgery (72% compared to 63% of patients over 50). The young are also more likely to use radiation therapy (53% to 48%) and have a slight advantage in surviving for five years (68% to 67%). Younger people are more likely to have advanced colon cancer partly because they get tested after noticing symptoms (like colon blockage, bleeding, and anemia), while people over 50 are advised to begin screenings, says Hendren. "Unfortunately, these symptoms are often ignored by the patient or doctor or ascribed to something like hemorrhoids," a scientist adds, per Reuters. Hendren's team conducted the study after noticing a rise in colon cancer among young people, Medical Daily reports, but that spike remains unexplained. Physical inactivity, obesity, smoking, and "an effect in our environment" are all possible causes, a Harvard professor says. More screenings for young people might help, but the yield would be low because under-50s are still less likely to get colon cancer. "This would be a big and costly change," says Hendren, who recommends "a lot of research" be done first. (A new killer is expected to top cancer by 2050.)