Rectal cancer rates are increasing in people under 40, although rates of colon cancer have remained stable in younger people. It isn’t clear why, but rectal cancer rates in this young group of men and women began increasing in 1984, rising about 3.8 percent a year.

Increases were similar for both sexes and all races.

A research team found 7,661 patients under 40 with colon or rectal cancer, including 1,922 with rectal cancer in the National Cancer Institute’s Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) cancer registry database between 1973 and 2005.

A new generation of DNA tests for colon cancer seems likely to improve the detection both of cancers and of the precancerous polyps that precede them. The tests, if validated, could reduce the burden of disease substantially by detecting tumors at an early stage, including those not picked up by a colonoscopy.

Despite guidelines calling for a colonoscopy a year after surgery for colon or rectal cancer, less than half of patients have had one 14 months after colorectal surgery intended to cure their cancer.

A study of stage I, II, and III colorectal cancer patients in the United States found that only 49 percent had received the recommended colonoscopy.

Currently follow-up guidelines call for a surveillance colonoscopy to look for local cancer recurrence or new polyps or cancers a year after surgery.  If that exam is normal, another colonoscopy is called for three years later and then every five years.

• Colon Cancer is the second leading cause if deaths in the United States behind lung cancer
• One out of 18 people will be diagnosed with colon cancer this year
• Colon Cancer is 90% preventable
• Over 50years of age, your chances of getting colon cancer just increased