“Cancers among young people have significantly increased in the last 20 years. And we don’t know why.”

Translated from Quotidiano Nazionale

On January 13, 2024, Roberto Burioni echoed the alarm raised by the Wall Street Journal regarding a concerning surge in cancer cases among young people over the last 20 years. The Professor of Microbiology and Virology at the Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan, known for his recent publication ‘Match Point – How Science is Defeating Cancer,’ commented on an article from the Wall Street Journal.

The U.S. newspaper emphasized the bewilderment of doctors worldwide in the face of a noticeable increase in cancer cases among the youth. Federal data in the United States leave no room for doubt: the diagnosis rates in 2019, with cases per 100,000 people under 50, reached 107.8 cases, a 12.8% growth compared to the 95.6 per 100,000 in 2000.

This trend was also confirmed by a study last year published in ‘Bmj Oncology,’ revealing a significant global rise in cancer cases among individuals under 50, with the highest rates in North America, Australia, and Western Europe.

Medical professionals are currently exploring various hypotheses for the surge in cancer cases among the youth, with a focus on modern lifestyles characterized by reduced physical activity, an increase in processed foods, and exposure to numerous new toxins.

Andrea Cercek, co-leader of a program for early-onset gastrointestinal cancer patients at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, warns, “Patients are getting younger.” In her department, Meilin Keen, a 27-year-old mentioned extensively in the newspaper, was treated. Meilin, who was studying for the bar exam in June, started vomiting blood and discovered she had stomach cancer, for which she underwent surgery.

Cercek also points to “some environmental change, something in our food, in our medications, or something we haven’t identified yet.”

The death of actor Chadwick Boseman in 2020 at the age of 43 due to colon cancer also highlighted the increasing incidence of this type of cancer in people under 50, a trend already noticed by doctors in the previous decade.

But it’s not just colon cancer; experts soon realized that the phenomenon extended to other forms of cancer, from pancreatic cancer to appendiceal cancer, stomach cancer to uterine cancer. Timothy Rebbeck, an epidemiologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, recalls, “Colon-rectal cancer was the canary in the coal mine.”

However, amidst the alarm, the Wall Street Journal notes that overall in the United States, the cancer mortality rate has decreased by a third since 1991, thanks to anti-smoking campaigns and more effective and early screening for diagnosis. Yet, this achievement is at risk of being overshadowed by the increase in early-onset cancers.

The data better explain the concerns of doctors and experts: in 2019, one-fifth of new colon-rectal cancer patients were under 55, double the rate in 1995. Additionally, the unexpected nature of cancer in younger individuals, not typically sought through specific analyses, facilitates late diagnoses in the young when the cancer is advanced. As a result, mortality rates for colon-rectal cancer among those over 65 are decreasing while rising in those under 50.

Meilin’s case is illustrative: “I never thought about cancer until I had it.” Having suffered from stomach burns and reflux since high school and taking antacids for months, when she lost her appetite and vomited blood, she believed it was due to excessive coffee consumption and didn’t consider the worst. Only at the emergency room did doctors speculate about a carcinogenic bacterium, and Meilin almost laughed, but they were right.