THURSDAY, Oct. 31, 2024 (HealthDay News) — Early-onset colorectal cancer (EO-CRC) mortality rose in the United States over the past two decades, most notably in patients aged 20 to 44 years, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology, held from Oct. 25 to 30 in Philadelphia.

Yazan Abboud, M.D., from Rutgers New Jersey Medical School in Newark, and colleagues compared EO-CRC mortality between young and younger-age cohorts (20 to 44 and 45 to 54 years, respectively) in different stages of diagnosis. The analysis included age-adjusted mortality rates (2000 to 2022) collected from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center of Health Statistics database and stage-specific incidence-based mortality rates identified from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results 22 database (SEER 22; 2004 to 2020).

The researchers found that mortality rates decreased between 2000 and 2005 and increased between 2005 and 2022 (annual percentage change [APC], 0.87). Similar trends were seen in patients aged 45 to 54 years (107,280 deaths), with mortality decreasing between 2000 and 2005 and increasing afterward (APC, 0.87). For patients aged 20 to 44 years (39,746 deaths), mortality steadily increased between 2000 and 2022 (APC, 0.93). Patients aged 20 to 44 years had a greater increase in mortality compared with those aged 45 to 54 years (average annual percentage change [AAPC], 0.85) with nonidentical, nonparallel data and an AAPC difference of 0.85. There were 147,026 deaths attributed to EO-CRC in the SEER 22 database. For early-stage tumors (4,026 deaths), mortality increased (AAPC, 12.37) in patients aged 45 to 54 years. There was an insufficient sample size for analysis among those aged 20 to 44 years. Mortality increased (AAPC, 10.56) for late-stage tumors (37,875 deaths), and this finding was seen in both cohorts: 45 to 54 years (AAPC, 11.17) and 20 to 44 years (AAPC, 13.87).

“These findings reinforce the need for increased advocacy for CRC screening in younger patients aiming to improve outcomes,” the authors write.

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