Identifying At-Risk Patients
In a comment, David A. Johnson, MD, professor of medicine and chief of gastroenterology at Eastern Virginia School of Medicine in Norfolk, said the findings speak to the need for evidence-based means of identifying younger individuals at a higher risk of EO-CRC.
“I suspect many of younger patients with CRC had their cancer detected when it was more advanced due to delayed presentation and diagnostic testing,” said Johnson, who was not involved in the study.
But it would be interesting to evaluate if the cancers in the cohort aged 20-44 years were more aggressive biologically or if these patients were dismissive of early signs or symptoms, he said.
Younger patients may dismiss “alarm” features that indicate CRC testing, said Johnson. “In particular, overt bleeding and iron deficiency need a focused evaluation in these younger cohorts.”
“Future research is needed to investigate the role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in younger patients with early-stage colorectal cancer and evaluate patients’ outcomes,” Abboud added.
The study had no specific funding. Abboud reported no relevant financial relationships. Johnson reported serving as an adviser to ISOTHRIVE. He is also on the Medscape Gastroenterology editorial board.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.