Cancer Diagnoses Skyrocketed In Recent Years And Officials Are Just Figuring Out Why Now
Local-stage colorectal cancer diagnoses increased dramatically from 2019 to 2022 in adults between the ages of 45 and 49, and colonoscopy screening also spiked, according to new studies published in August.
A new study led by the American Cancer Society (ACS) and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) discovered this change following a “stable 15-year trend,” according to an August 4 ACS press release.
The study analyzed colorectal cancer diagnoses from 2004 to 2022 among adults between the ages of 20 and 54 years in the 21 geographic areas of the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program. Cases were organized by age, cancer location, and diagnosis stage. Its incidence rates were adjusted for delays in case reporting and age-standardized to the 2000 U.S. standard population, according to the press release.
Rising diagnoses among the 45-49 year cohort between 2019 and 2022 included a 50% relative growth in diagnoses between 2021 and 2022, from 11.7 to 17.5 cases per 100,000. This age range’s regular 1.1% annual increase in diagnoses skyrocketed to 12% per year between 2019 and 2022, largely due to the detection of local-stage tumors. The study found that local-stage tumors for colon cancer increased annually by 18.8% and lby 25.1% for rectal cancer, according to the press release.
Lowering the colorectal cancer screening age to 45 is supported by similar adenoma detection rates between those aged 45 to 49 and those aged 50 to 54, with slightly lower prevalence in the younger group. https://t.co/SEhtBBROZH @jeffleemd pic.twitter.com/Tv19JLZTLl
— JAMA (@JAMA_current) August 5, 2025
The ACS’s study also found that colorectal cancer incidence increased consistently by 1.6% annually since 2004 among adults between 2o and 39-years-old, and by 2-2.6% per year since 2012 among the age cohorts of 40-44 and 50-54. Rates of localized disease for those 20 to 39-years-old remained stable, and rates among those in the age ranges of 40-44 and 50-54 had a slower increase of 2.5-3.1% annually beginning in 2016 to 2017, and were confined to rectal tumors. Advanced-stage colorectal cancer continued growing by 1.7-2.9% per year since 2004 among adults under 45-years-old and even faster in the past decade for those between ages 45 and 54, the press release stated. (Read more from “Cancer Diagnoses Skyrocketed In Recent Years And Officials Are Just Figuring Out Why Now” HERE)
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