When Ms. Peters finally visited a gastroenterologist in 2021, after having her third child and experiencing worsening bleeding from her rectum along with changes in her stool consistency, an urgent colonoscopy confirmed that she had colorectal cancer. Yet “I did not expect that cancer was going to be what they found,” Ms. Peters said. A report published by the American Cancer Society in January suggests that rates of colorectal cancer are rising rapidly among people in their 20s, 30s and 40s — even as incidence is declining in people over the age of 65. “It’s unfortunately becoming a bigger problem every year,” said Dr. Michael Cecchini, a co-director of the colorectal program in the Center for Gastrointestinal Cancers and a medical oncologist at Yale Cancer Center. This increase has moved colorectal cancer up to being the top cause of cancer deaths in men under the age of 50 and the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in women under 50 in the United States.

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Persons: Marisa Peters, Peters, “, Ms, ”, Michael Cecchini Organizations: American Cancer Society, Yale Cancer Center Locations: United States