Young people with colon cancer appear to have slightly different symptoms than typical patients with the disease, according to a new study.
Doctors told DailyMail.com that people under the age of 50 who experience any of the following symptoms should get checked immediately and not wait.
The new study looked at 5,000 people in Taiwan of different ages with colon cancer. Six in ten over-50s experienced rectal bleeding before the disease was diagnosed, compared to less than half of over-50s.
And almost 60 percent of young people with the disease also experienced changes in their toilet habits leading up to or after a diagnosis, compared to 48 percent of older patients.
Dr. Cedrek McFadden, an oncologist in South Carolina who was not involved in the study, said the different symptoms between old and young patients were consistent with what he had seen in his patients.
The above shows the symptoms and their frequency in early-onset patients, who develop colon cancer before the age of 50, and in late-onset patients, who develop the cancer after this age.
Carly Barrett was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 24 after discovering blood in her stool and experiencing abdominal pain. The teacher is from Kentucky
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“It certainly makes sense,” he told DailyMail.com. ‘Rectal bleeding had the strongest association, especially in the early stages.’
‘Rectal bleeding is usually an earlier sign of cancer, while abdominal pain is a later sign.
‘Sometimes younger patients have many complaints of hemorrhoids, and one of the complaints of hemorrhoids is bleeding.
‘It is common for younger patients to attribute bleeding to haemorrhoids and never see a doctor, but this can cause a potential cancer to grow and be somewhat advanced by the time the diagnosis is finally made.
“That’s why I often tell patients that bleeding, while common, is not normal — and tell them to get checked out by a doctor.”
The study was led by Taiwan’s Chang Gung Memorial Hospital network, which serves more than 280,000 patients annually.
In the article, scientists analyzed hospital database data on symptoms reported by patients diagnosed with colon cancer between January 2008 and December 2019.
Patients over the age of 70 were excluded from the analysis because, the researchers said, they were at greater risk of dying from the disease.
Taiwan is also recording a spike in early-onset colon cancers, meaning Western diets can’t be entirely to blame.
Joshua Sanchez, 38, of East Harlem in New York City, mistook his rectal bleeding for hemorrhoids instead of colon cancer. He was diagnosed with stage four (shown above with his mother)
Other theories suggested the increase could be related to food additives such as emulsifiers, which are often used in low-fat products such as low-fat yogurt to improve texture.
And some scientists have also suggested it could be linked to microplastics or high-fructose corn syrup, a sugar alternative often used in soft drinks.
In the study, doctors analyzed data from 5,704 colon cancer patients, including 1,204 who were younger than 50 years old.
It was found that rectal bleeding, changes in bowel habits and abdominal pain were more likely to be associated with younger patients.
In older patients, rectal bleeding and changes in bowel habits were also the two most common symptoms, but these were less common than in young adults.
The third most common symptom for the group was a shift in the frequency of going to the toilet.
The above graph shows the increase in colorectal cancer in Americans under the age of 50 over the past twenty years
The paper also noted an increase in bowel cancer among young people, saying cases among those in their 50s have risen by three percent per year since 2009.
The doctors did not provide a reason why these three symptoms were most common in early-onset cases, but they did note that these patients tended to be diagnosed at a later time, when the disease was more advanced.
The study found that 62.4 percent of young people were diagnosed with their cancer at stage four or three, compared to 50.3 percent of older adults.
The rising trend of colon cancer cases in Taiwan mirrors the situation in the US, where the incidence of the disease among people under 50 years of age has increased by 50 percent over the past three decades.
Rates among people under 50 have risen by about two percent every year since the early 2000s, with the US now having the sixth highest rate of early-onset colon cancer worldwide.
Among the patients diagnosed with the cancer before their 50th birthday in the US was Joshua Sanchez, from Harlem, who was diagnosed with the cancer at the age of 38.
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He had thought his rectal bleeding was due to haemorrhoids before eventually being diagnosed with stage four cancer.
Meanwhile, teacher Carly Barrett was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 24, just as she was starting her career.
The Kentucky resident’s cancer was discovered after she started noticing blood in her stool and experiencing stomach pain.