Some years ago a patient I’d known since he was a child was diagnosed with colorectal cancer at the age of just 29.
The news shocked me. That month another patient, a woman of 48, was diagnosed with the same cancer.
I’m happy to report that, six years on, both remain well, but at the time I was taken aback to have two such young patients with this diagnosis — traditionally a disease of the over-50s.
But now research shows that the incidence has risen dramatically in younger patients (those under 50), by 25 per cent over the past 10 years.
Some clues as to what might be going on have emerged from a study that compared the microbiome — the microbes that live in the gut — of younger patients with colorectal cancer with that of patients over 65.
The researchers found that the younger patients had higher levels of a type of fungus called Cladosporium, commonly found in homes and food; the older group had a different set of organisms not seen in the younger ones.
Might this finding help in terms of prevention? Such is the pace of microbiome research, I suspect we’ll know more sooner rather than later.
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