Study finds cancer rates before age 50 increasing

A radiologist uses a magnifying glass to check mammograms for breast cancer in LA. Damian Dovarganes/ap 2010

Cancer before age 50 is rare, but it’s increasing in the United States and researchers want to know why.

A new government study provides the most complete picture yet of early- onset cancers, finding that the largest increases are in breast, colorectal, kidney and uterine cancers. Scientists from the National Cancer Institute looked at data that included more than 2 million cancers diagnosed in people 15 to 49 years old between 2010 and 2019.

Of 33 cancer types, 14 cancers had increasing rates in at least one younger age group. About 63% of the early-onset cancers were among women.

The findings were recently published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The researchers compared cancer rates in 2019 to what would be expected based on 2010 rates. Breast cancer made up the largest share of the excess cancers, with about 4,800 additional cases. There were 2,000 more colorectal cancers compared with what would be expected based on the 2010 rates. There were 1,800 more kidney cancers and 1,200 additional uterine cancers.

Reassuringly, death rates were not rising for most cancers in the young adult age groups, although increasing death rates were seen for colorectal, uterine and testicular cancers.

Advances in cancer detection and changes in screening guidelines could be behind some early diagnoses.

This isn’t happening across the board. Cancer rates in people under 50 are going down for more than a dozen types of cancer, with the largest declines in lung and prostate cancers.