Boston-based Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center opened the Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center in response to elevated CRC rates in young adults.
What you should know:
1. The center will care for cancer patients while researching the disease further. Relatively little is known why early-onset CRC — CRC diagnosed in any patient under the age of 50 — is increasing.
2. Since 1994, early-onset CRC rates have increased 51 percent, according to National Cancer Institute data.
3. Center Director Kimmie Ng, MD, said early-onset cancer rates are expected to skyrocket 90 percent for colon cancer and 124 percent for rectal cancer by 2030.
4. The center will offer its patients personalized treatments by sequencing their tumors through their GI Target program.