those goddamned red bulls give you wings and appendix cancer
Appendix cancers on the rise in younger generations, study finds
Though extremely rare, cancers of the appendix are being diagnosed at higher rates in Gen X and millennials compared with earlier cohorts.
June 9, 2025, 6:16 PM EDT
By Linda Carroll
Although they are very rare, cancers of the appendix are on the rise, a new study finds.
An analysis of a National Cancer Institute database found that compared with older generations, rates of appendix cancer have tripled among Gen X and quadrupled among millennials, according to the report, published Monday in the
Annals of Internal Medicine.
“There is a disproportionate burden of appendix cancer among young individuals,” said the study’s lead author, Andreana Holowatyj, an assistant professor of hematology and oncology at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center.
Holowatyj’s earlier research was “the first to show that
1 in every 3 appendix cancers is diagnosed among adults younger than age 50,” she said in a phone interview. “That’s compared to 1 in every 8 colorectal cancers diagnosed among adults younger than age 50.”
Still, appendix cancers are extremely rare: According to the
National Cancer Institute, they occur at a rate of 1 to 2 per million people in the United States a year.
To see whether rates of the cancer had changed over time, Holowatyj turned to the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results program, which includes data from nationally representative cancer registries that cover about 45.9% of the U.S. population.
Overall, there were 4,858 cases of appendix cancer from 1975 through 2019.
When the large proportion of patients diagnosed between ages 18 and 49 is combined with the new finding of a generational rise in Gen X and millennials, it’s “important that we find the causes underpinning these statistics in order to reverse this trend and reduce the disease burden,” Holowatyj said.
The new study further confirms that there is a trend toward younger and younger patients from recent generations being hit with
gastrointestinal cancers, said Dr. Andrea Cercek, a medical oncologist and a co-director of the Center for Early Onset Colorectal and GI Cancers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
In particular, rates of colorectal cancer in younger adults have been
rising for several decades. The cause for the rise in such GI cancers needs more research.
