Agenus shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Colorectal Cancer Is Now the Leading Cancer Killer in Adults Under 50 — We Must Act Now
Last week, as patients and advocates gathered in Washington to raise awareness about colorectal cancer, a sobering reality should focus our attention:
Colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer-related death in adults under 50 in the United States.
For decades, we measured progress against cancer by falling death rates. In younger adults that trend mostly held. Except in colorectal cancer.
New national mortality data just published in JAMA (Siegel et al., 2026) confirm it. While deaths from lung cancer, breast cancer, leukemia and other major cancers have dropped over the past three decades, colorectal cancer mortality in adults under 50 has climbed every year since 2005. It jumped from fifth place in the early 1990s to first by 2023.
That is no statistical fluke. It is a clear warning that the status quo has failed.
From 1990 to 2023 overall cancer deaths among adults under 50 fell 44%. Colorectal cancer went the other way.
We cannot accept this.
Early-onset colorectal cancer is hitting people in their 30s and 40s – men and women building careers, raising young families, giving back to their communities. Nearly three out of four are already at advanced stage when diagnosed.
The fallout is brutal. Fertility worries. Parenting through brutal treatment. Crushing financial strain. Lifelong physical damage. Careers derailed. This is not just a medical crisis. It is a public-health and economic one.
Screening now starts at 45 for average-risk folks, and we need far better awareness of warning signs like blood in the stool or ongoing abdominal pain. Earlier detection will save lives. But detection by itself will not fix this.
More than 90% of colorectal cancers – especially the metastatic ones – are microsatellite stable, or MSS, also called pMMR. These are the immunologically cold tumors that have barely responded to immunotherapy so far.
Only a small slice, about 5 to 10%, are MSI-high or dMMR. Those patients often respond dramatically to current immunotherapy, which is why those successes dominate the news.
For the vast majority with MSS disease, treatment is still mostly chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. These can work, but they frequently leave permanent neuropathy, bowel problems, infertility and reduced quality of life.
Extending survival matters. Preserving real quality of life matters just as much.
The next chapter in colorectal cancer care has to deliver both.
Science has moved forward. We can now mobilize the immune system in smarter ways, and next-generation immunotherapy approaches are already showing durable activity even in these cold tumors.
But science alone is not enough. We have to speed up development timelines, modernize how we evaluate new therapies, create responsible pathways for global access, invest seriously in prevention and early detection, and get regulators, clinicians, industry and advocates all moving with the same urgency.
Colorectal cancer should not be the leading cancer killer of adults under 50. The fact that it is demands real action right now.
This is not the time for small steps. It is the time for acceleration. Patients cannot wait.”
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