Back or abdominal pain (73.8%)Change in bowel habits (45.2%)Weight loss (42.9%)Rectal bleeding (38.1%)<\/p>\n
Patients had symptoms for a median of 12 weeks (IQR, 2.0-24.0) before diagnosis, and median time to colonoscopy was 13 weeks (IQR, 6.0-32.0). Only 20.2% reported a first- or second-degree relative with CRC.2<\/p>\n
Advanced disease and aggressive histology<\/p>\n
Most patients presented with locally advanced or metastatic disease: 51.0% had stage III and 29.0% had stage IV CRC at diagnosis. Upfront resection was performed in 73.8% of patients, while 17.9% received neoadjuvant chemotherapy.2<\/p>\n
Pathology frequently showed high-risk features, including signet ring cells (33.3%), mucin (39.3%), and poorly differentiated histology (41.6%). Of the 46 patients who underwent germline testing, 17.4% had a mismatch repair mutation, 8.6% a TP53 mutation, and 4.3% an APC mutation.2<\/p>\n
High rates of relapse and mortality<\/p>\n
Overall, 36.9% of participants experienced relapse at a median of 11 months (IQR, 10.0-21.0), and nearly all of them (96.8%) had stage III or IV disease at diagnosis. Compared with patients who did not relapse, those who did were more likely to have2:<\/p>\n
Positive lymph nodes (90.3% vs 50.9%; P = .0004)Poorly differentiated histology (64.5% vs 28.3%; P = .0047)Signet ring features (61.3% vs 17.0%; P = .0002)<\/p>\n
By the end of the study period, 45.2% of patients had died of CRC.2 The authors noted that diagnostic delays, combined with aggressive tumor biology, may contribute to poor long-term outcomes.1<\/p>\n
Implications for frontline clinicians<\/p>\n
The investigators concluded that practitioners should consider CRC in the differential diagnosis for adolescents with symptoms such as abdominal pain and rectal bleeding when no alternative diagnosis explains them. Because most patients in the study had no known family history, a negative family history should not by itself rule out further evaluation in your patients.2<\/p>\n
The authors also emphasized taking unexplained weight loss and rectal bleeding seriously in younger patients. As early-onset cancers appear in increasingly younger patients, they noted that coordination between pediatric and adult care teams and carefully tailored treatment regimens will be essential.2<\/p>\n
The findings were presented as a conference abstract and have not yet been published as a full peer-reviewed study.<\/p>\n
References:American Academy of Pediatrics. Colorectal cancer on the rise in adolescent patients<\/a>. News release. October 2, 2026. Accessed October 13, 2026.Arnold E, Cameron D, et al. Clinical presentation and epidemiology of pediatric and adolescent colorectal carcinoma: a Pediatric Surgical Oncology Research Collaborative study. Abstract presented at: American Academy of Pediatrics 2026 National Conference & Exhibition; October 3, 2026; San Diego, CA. Abstract text in AAP news release<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back or abdominal pain (73.8%)Change in bowel habits (45.2%)Weight loss (42.9%)Rectal bleeding (38.1%) Patients had symptoms for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-629869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}