Bowel cancer survival in young people isn't improving like other cancers

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2026-08-15 01:00

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Bowel cancer is now the leading cause of cancer-related death in under-50s in Norway as a result of increased survival for all other major cancers, according to a study of the last 30 years. Following a recent study which found the bowel cancer death rate isn't dropping in the US, the researchers investigated cancer rates in Norwegian under-50s to see whether a country with public healthcare was seeing the same results. From 1996-2024, the researchers say the overall cancer-related death rate dropped from 30.2 per 100,000 people to 13.3, with declines in brain, lung, skin, breast and pancreatic cancer deaths. Bowel cancer bucked the trend, the researchers say, with death rates remaining steady over recent decades, making it the leading cause of cancer death in young people in the country since 2020.