Young-onset rectal cancer patients: in need of answers

What is it about?

Young-onset rectal cancer patients present a unique and hitherto not well appreciated clinical entity. Studies exploring their survival in comparison to older patients clearly demonstrate a poor survival. This has been either erroneously attributed to delayed diagnosis in young people with the cancer or overlooked in studies that addressed survival in colon and rectal cancers as a single entity. The recent large reports have provided the desired impetus towards acknowledging young-onset rectal cancer as a distinct entity with a likely unique set of contributing factors. This brief communication brings these issues to the fore in order to stimulate research that would be meaningful not only in terms of better understanding this disease, but hopefully improving the survival of these patients.

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