Experts want to expand colorectal cancer screening to age 45

The Portuguese Society of Gastroenterology (SPG) wants to raise the recommended age for colorectal cancer screening by five years, to 45, as cases of the disease in people under 50 have doubled in 10 years.

SPG President Pedro Narra Figueiredo’s message to Lusa comes in the month the Colon Cancer Agreement was signed and focuses on the fact that the cancer is “easily preventable” and can be screened for – through colonoscopy.

This examination can “detect minor injury and treat the person.”

According to SPG, cancers of the digestive system as a whole account for about a quarter of all cancers and cause 35% of deaths, but among these, colorectal (bowel) cancer looms large.

“In Portugal there are 7,000 new cases every year and it is the second most common cancer in women, just after breast cancer,” the president said, counting colon and rectal cancer (intestinal cancer in general) as the second most common cancer in men. immediately after prostate cancer.

“From all points of view, in both men and women, this is actually a very common tumor with a mortality rate of 50%. Half of patients die from bowel cancer,” the gastroenterologist warned.

Added to this is a “very relevant” aspect, the specialist assured, – a clear increase in the number of young patients, aged 45 to 50 years, with bowel cancer.

This threshold of 50 years is important because screening for this cancer is recommended from this age, but Pedro Narra Figueiredo assures that a preventive approach can reduce this increase in incidence among young people over the past decade.

“We are advocating and highlighting the importance of raising the starting age for screening for this cancer from 50 to 45 years in view of the significant increase in cancer cases in this age group,” he said.

Ten years ago, the proportion of colorectal cancer cases under the age of 50 years was 5% of all these tumors, and currently it is 10%.

He found that the incidence of colorectal cancer in people under 50 had doubled in ten years.

This increase in the incidence of colorectal cancer is associated, on the one hand, with the aging of the population, since these tumors are more common in older age groups, and on the other hand, with the increasing prevalence of risk factors associated with lifestyle. .

In addition to screening, preventing this cancer, he explained, involves a healthy lifestyle based on four factors: abstinence from alcohol and tobacco, control of obesity and exercise.

Prevention should be the focus of health policy, says SPG, remembering that in the case of bowel cancer it is “extremely effective” in reducing morbidity and mortality.