Cancer rates for young adults increase: especially thyroid and reproductive cancers
More young Canadians diagnosed with cancer
OLIVER MOORE / Globe and Mail 18apr02
Young Canadians are being increasingly diagnosed with cancer, a working group on the disease announced Thursday.
Although the overall rate among those 25 to 44 is up less than 1 per cent, certain types of cancer have increased dramatically, and the increase is radically at odds with the significant drop in incidence among both men and women overall.
The incidence of thyroid cancer among young people leads the way, a report says, with a 6.6-per-cent rise among women and a 4.4-per-cent rise among men. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma is affecting 3.5 per cent more women and 4 per cent more men.
The report - a collaborative effort by the Canadian Cancer Society, Health Canada, Statistics Canada and several provincial and territorial cancer registries - shows that 97,469 cases of cancer were diagnosed among young people between 1987 and 1996, amounting to about 8.7 per cent of all cancer diagnoses during that period.
"This is new and important information for Canadians," said Dr. Barb Whylie, director of cancer control policy for the Canadian Cancer Society. "Cancer is a devastating disease, and this is especially evident when young adults with many years ahead of them are diagnosed with this disease."
Cancer was found to occur twice as often among young women as among young men, largely because of breast and reproductive cancers. Breast cancer accounts for 33 per cent of cancer cases among young women, with cervical cancer trailing at 11 per cent and then melanoma at 8 per cent.
Testicular cancer is the most prevalent diagnosis among young men, accounting for 14 per cent of cases. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and melanoma follow, with 11 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively.
Older Canadians still account for the vast bulk of cancer diagnoses, the report said, but it called the rise among younger people troubling.
Cancer usually results when genes are damaged by multiple exposure to risk factors over 20 to 30 years, said Dr. John McLaughlin, an epidemiologist at Toronto's Mount Sinai Hospital, leaving doctors to explore whether the same risk factors apply to younger people. The report - Cancer Incidence in Young Adults in Canada: Preliminary Results of a Cancer Suveillance Project - forms a section of the 2002 Canadian Cancer Statistics. The overall data suggests that 136,900 Canadian will be diagnosed with cancer in 2002, and 66,200 people will die of it.
Copyright © 2002 Bell Globemedia Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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