This article discusses potential risk factors of cancer, including early-life exposure to carcinogens and increasing obesity rates, while highlighting the need for vigilance and early symptom evaluation due to the lack of screening tests for these cancers.

Incidence rates of small intestine, kidney, and pancreatic cancers are as much as three times higher among patients born in 1990 vs those born in 1955, according to a recent study published in The Lancet Public Health.[1] 

Helping Doctors Stay Vigilant

Jack Jacoub, MD, a board-certified medical oncologist and Medical Director of MemorialCare Cancer Institute at Orange Coast and Saddleback Medical Centers in Orange County, CA, says that for doctors who treat patients of various ages and with various cancer diagnoses, it can be difficult to notice generational trends in the workplace alone. He adds that staying up-to-date on research studies, like the one published in The Lancet, can help doctors stay vigilant about their patients’ potential cancer risks.

“Some of the data that's been coming up specifically addressing this issue has been pretty striking,” Dr. Jacoub says. “Maybe clinicians were aware of it, but not necessarily aware of the magnitude of the issue.”

He adds that The Lancet study “sends it home in terms of how significant the changes are” between older and younger generations.

What's Possibly Behind the Rise?

More work is needed to explain why these cancers are rising among younger adults, but the researchers highlight potential risk factors like millennials’ “increased exposure to carcinogenic factors during early life or young adulthood” when compared with previous generations.

They also highlight increased odds among post–Baby Boomer generations, including millennials, of developing obesity or type 2 diabetes—two conditions that may put people at higher risk of developing certain cancers. 

When it comes to the three cancers that appear to be rising most rapidly among millennials—small intestine, kidney, and pancreatic—he says that pancreatic may be the cancer type he notices the most in his practice. 

For all three, he adds, a lack of early screening tests could increase the chances of both younger and older patients developing a cancer that starts off undetected.

“There [are] no screening studies for any of those three cancers, so [they’re] hard to detect at an earlier age, which impacts prognosis and survival,” Dr. Jacoub says.

To stay on top of the trends as closely as you can, Dr Jacoub adds, it is important to tell your patients to get their recommended cancer screenings—and to get symptoms evaluated if and when they arise.

Disclaimer: This story is contributed by Claire Wolters is a part of our Global Content Initiative, where we feature selected stories from our Global network which we believe would be most useful and informative to our doctor members.