Rates of stomach cancer, also known as gastric cancer, among younger people is on the rise.
Typically, stomach cancer is diagnosed in patients in their 60s and 70s, but it is increasingly being diagnosed in younger patients.
While rates of stomach cancer in older patients have been declining for decades, early-onset stomach cancer is increasing.
The latter currently makes up around 30% of stomach cancer diagnoses.
Mayo Clinic surgical oncologist Dr Travis Grotz calls this an alarming trend and shares what people should know about the signs and symptoms of stomach cancer.
“It used to be a cancer of old age, you know – 70s and 80s,” he says.
“But now I’m seeing 20-, 30-, 40-year-old people with cancer.”
He says many younger patients with stomach cancer are being diagnosed late, when treatment is less effective.
“I think unfortunately, the younger patients, they often think they had a bad meal.
“They think – even physicians, you know, think – that it’s just reflux; they’re just stressed out; they’re too young to have cancer,” he says.
Symptoms of gastric cancer may be dismissed as minor issues in younger people.
Those symptoms can include:
- Weight loss
- Reflux
- Indigestion
- Difficulty swallowing
- Anaemia.
“Reflux and having heartburn, indigestion, gastritis, that can be normal, absolutely,” says Dr Grotz.
“But you certainly want to be aware of that and evaluate and make sure there’s not something more sinister going on.”
As for what’s causing an increase in gastric cancer among younger people, he says it could be a new, unknown risk factor, possibly related to food preparation or environmental factors. – Mayo Clinic News Network/Tribune News Service
