Bryce Ramsey was 33, a nurse who spent her shifts watching for symptoms in other people. When she saw blood in her stool, she blamed hemorrhoids. She had just had a baby and was exhausted. Her first colonoscopy found a 2.5-inch polyp. Five days later she had a colorectal cancer diagnosis, and ten days after that she was in surgery.
“Looking back, I had been experiencing symptoms, but like so many people, I found ways to explain them away,” she told The Epoch Times. Her cancer had reached stage 3 by the time doctors found it. She is now cancer-free.
Her story fits a pattern researchers described this spring. A study led by Mythili Menon Pathiyil, a gastroenterology fellow at SUNY Upstate Medical University, found that rectal cancer deaths among Americans aged 20 to 44 are rising two to three times faster than colon cancer deaths. The team went through Centers for Disease Control and Prevention death records from 1999 to 2023 and presented the work at Digestive Disease Week 2026 in Chicago. It has not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal.
“Colorectal cancer is no longer considered predominantly a disease of older adults,” Pathiyil said. “Rectal cancer, especially, is becoming a growing problem in younger individuals.”
Who is hit hardest
Deaths from both cancers were highest among adults 35 to 44, so older millennials carry much of the burden. Hispanic adults and residents of Western states saw the steepest increases in rectal cancer deaths. Using a machine learning model to project trends through 2035, the team found the gap between rectal and colon cancer mortality widening across every demographic group. Rectal cancer deaths are projected to rise by roughly a quarter, while colon cancer deaths would increase only modestly.
Dr. Ben Schlechter, a gastrointestinal medical oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who was not involved in the study, did not soften it. “This is a medical crisis,” he said. “This is not something that should be ignored.”
The American Cancer Society expects 158,850 new colorectal cancer diagnoses in 2026 and about 55,230 deaths, nearly a third of them in people under 65.
No clear cause
The researchers did not identify why the tumors are increasing, or whether they are becoming more aggressive. Schlechter said most of the cases driving the surge are not hereditary. “It’s not like there’s a new gene in the population,” he said. “This is something modern.” He suggested an exposure in the 1960s or 1970s may be involved, and that the colon’s microbiome could have been disrupted early in life, possibly by heavy consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks in childhood. Many young patients, he added, have “zero risk factors. That’s really troubling.”
Rebecca Siegel, a cancer epidemiologist at the American Cancer Society who was not part of the study, said the rise is tied to birth cohort. Incidence and mortality are climbing in generations born after the 1950s, she told The Epoch Times. “The increase in early-onset disease is a canary in the coal mine for the future disease burden.”
Delay in diagnosis
Older adults usually begin treatment within a month of symptoms starting. Young adults wait an average of seven months. Pathiyil said primary care providers often write off rectal bleeding or changes in bowel habits in young patients as benign. Many patients also assume they are “too young for cancer.”
Dr. Abraham El-Sedfy, chair of surgery at St. Joseph’s Health, said rectal bleeding is commonly blamed on hemorrhoids in younger adults, which holds up further evaluation. “The bigger issue we face is often delayed diagnosis rather than inherently more aggressive disease,” he said. Pathiyil put the cost in numbers: 75% of people under 50 are diagnosed at an advanced stage.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening for average-risk adults from age 45. El-Sedfy said that for people under 45 the message is not necessarily to screen everyone earlier, but to act on symptoms. Rectal bleeding, narrow stools, a feeling of incomplete emptying, abdominal pain, unexplained weight loss and fatigue should be checked with a colonoscopy, he and Rachel Gordon, a New York colorectal surgeon, said. Standard rectal cancer treatment can involve surgery, radiation and chemotherapy to the pelvic region, which may affect bladder, bowel and sexual function.
Sources
- Rectal cancer deaths rising up to three times faster in specific age group, study finds
- More Young Adults Are Dying From Rectal Cancer–Early Signs Often Go Unnoticed
- Rectal cancer deaths rising rapidly among millennials: 'It's a medical crisis.'
