Rise in Young Onset Colorectal Cancer

Since the mid-90’s, there has been a rise in young patients getting colorectal cancer. Even more recently, we’ve seen death rates in patients under 50. There is no clear understanding of why this is happening. Theories such as diabetes and obesity are potential causes. At Georgetown, research is looking at microbiomes and seeing if there is any correlation.

Transcript:
Since the mid-1990s, we've seen a dramatic rise in young patients getting colorectal cancer. This is a relatively recent phenomena and recently since the year 2000, we've actually seen death rates in the patients under 50 years old from colorectal cancer. Why this is happening, we don't actually have a very good idea. There are a number of theories that have been positive, including obesity, diabetes, rising in those epidemics causing the rise in colorectal cancer. However, no one has really put their finger on the exact cause.

Here at Georgetown University, we're doing some research into microbiome, to try to understand does the bacterial makeup of the patient's colons lead to young onset colorectal cancer? Are young onset colorectal cancers fundamentally different than patients who get colorectal cancer later in life? Those are multiple questions that we're trying to actively investigate now and we hope to have answers in the near future.