Millennials and Gen Xers face higher risk of 17 cancers than previous generations, study suggests

As cancer cases rise among young adults in the United States, a new study has identified 17 cancer types that appear to be more common in Generation X and millennials than older age groups.

As cancer cases rise among young adults in the United States, a new study has identified 17 cancer types that appear to be more common in Generation X and millennials than older age groups. Among adults born between 1920 and 1990, there is a significant difference between each generation in the incidence of cancer rates and cancer types, including breast, colon and rectal, pancreatic and uterine cancers, according to the study published Wednesday in the journal The Lancet Public Health. “Uterine cancer is one that really jumps out where we see tremendous increases. It has about a 169% higher incidence rate if you’re born in the 1990s as opposed to if you’re born in the 1950s – and this is for people at the same age. Someone born in the 1950s, when they were in their 30s or 40s, saw a different incidence rate compared with someone born in the 1990s in their 30s or 40s,” said Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer for the American Cancer Society, whose colleagues authored the new study. “What’s a little different about this paper is that it includes a wider variety of cancers,” he said. “It actually looked at 34 different cancers in which 17, we saw an increase in incidence, and five an increase in mortality in young adults under the age of 50.” Those 17 cancers are: The researchers, from the American Cancer Society and the University of Calgary in Canada, analyzed data on more than 23 million patients diagnosed with 34 types of cancer and more than 7 million people who died of 25 types of cancer.