Rectal cancer deaths rising rapidly among millennials: 'It's a medical crisis'

Health newsRectal cancer deaths rising rapidly among millennials: 'It's a medical crisis.'By 2035, rectal cancer death rates could exceed deaths from colon cancer, new research suggests. Listen to this article with a free account00:0000:00Add NBC News to GoogleA Look at the Life-Saving Advances to Fight Colorectal Cancer05:13Get more newsLiveonShareAdd NBC News to GoogleApril 23, 2026, 12:00 AM EDTBy Erika EdwardsDeaths from rectal cancer are rising rapidly among younger adults, an alarming trend that is confounding scientists trying to understand why millennials are so hard-hit. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.“The rate of rectal cancer seems to be increasing more than two to three times compared to colon cancer,” said Mythili Menon Pathiyil, lead author of a new study and a gastroenterology fellow at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. If the trend continues, rectal cancer deaths will exceed the number of colon cancer deaths — already the nation’s No. 1 cause of cancer death in people under age 50 — by 2035. According to the American Cancer Society, 158,850 new colorectal cancers will be diagnosed in 2026. About 55,230 patients will die from the disease, with nearly a third of those deaths in people under age 65. Colon cancer and rectal cancer are similar but form in different parts of the digestive tract. The new research, which hasn’t yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, is scheduled to be presented at a national meeting of gastroenterologists in May. The findings, however, strengthen an American Cancer Society study released in March showing that a rise in rectal cancer rates is driving increases in colorectal cancer diagnoses in people younger than age 65. Colorectal cancer rates have been increasing 3% each year for adults under age 50 since the late 1990s and scientists are scrambling to understand why. “This is a medical crisis,” Dr. Ben Schlechte...