TUESDAY, April 28, 2026 (NewsDay News) — Colorectal cancer is occurring earlier and killing adults faster, according to research presented at Digestive Diseases Week 2026, May 2-5 in Chicago.
Mithili Menon Pathil, MD, of SUNY Upstate University School of Medicine in Syracuse, New York, and colleagues analyzed US death records for adults aged 20 to 44 (1999 to 2023) identified from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s WONDER database. The researchers calculated annual changes in death rates by sex, race and ethnicity, region, and age group, and then used an ARIMA machine learning model to project trends through 2035.
The researchers found that during the study period, deaths from colon cancer increased in most demographic groups. Colorectal cancer mortality was higher in men (annual average change (AAPC), 0.43 percent) than in women (0.24 percent), and mortality is expected to increase. The death rate from rectal cancer has increased in both men (1.83 percent) and women (1.84 percent). Hispanic adults had the largest increase in death from both colon cancer (1.06 percent) and rectal cancer (2.20 percent), while white adults showed steady increases (0.71 and 1.72 percent, respectively). While colon cancer deaths decreased among blacks (-0.82 percent) and Asian/Pacific Islander adults (-0.57 percent), both groups saw an increase in rectal cancer deaths (0.80 and 1.01 percent, respectively). A change in the burden of disease was seen in young adults. Colon cancer mortality was highest among adults aged 35 to 39 (0.74 percent) and 40 to 44 (0.56 percent), and rectal cancer mortality was significantly higher (1.77 and 1.71 percent, respectively). Colon cancer deaths decreased among those aged 20 to 24 (−1.75 percent) and 25 to 29 years (−0.34 percent), while colon cancer deaths decreased only among those aged 25 to 29 (−0.22 percent).
“It’s less about changing guidelines overnight and more about changing the way we think about it, recognizing that colorectal cancer in young people is no longer rare and needs earlier attention,” Pathil said.
