Why this Ontario rapper says colon cancer screening should start at age 30, not 50

A Hamilton, Ont., musician and actor who is fighting fourth-stage colon cancer is calling on his provincial government to lower the minimum age for colonoscopy screening from 50 to 30.

Bishop Brigante, a rapper with hits like his 2017 single Hard Times and an actor with turns on shows like Orphan Black, was diagnosed with colon cancer in October 2023.

But it was two years earlier when, in his early 40s, he first started seeking care for stomach pain, diarrhea and blood in his stool.

"My doctors would say, 'That's hemorrhoids.' They told me that I had irritable bowel syndrome, which at that time I was told, 'You just gotta kind of work on your diet, fix the food you eat' and stuff like that," he told Dr. Brian Goldman, host of CBC Radio's White Coat, Black Art.

By the time Brigante pushed for and eventually received a colonoscopy, followed by MRI and CT scans, he had an eight-centimetre tumour that had penetrated the wall of his rectum and spread to other places like his liver and lungs.

Hearing that news "was a pretty heavy load to bear."

Brigante is part of a puzzling rise of colon cancer in a younger group of adults than is typical. The Canadian Cancer Society says it's now the second leading cause of cancer deaths in men, and the third leading cause in women.

The trend prompted the United States in 2021 to lower the age for routine colonoscopies in average-risk individuals from 50 to 45, and has led to calls like Brigante's and others to change how health systems approach both screening for and awareness of the disease.

"I've been treating colorectal cancer for over 20 years, and no doubt we are seeing patients being diagnosed at an earlier age," said Dr. Sharlene Gill, a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia and B.C. Cancer oncologist whose work focuses mostly on gastrointestinal cancers.

She said it's now estimated that about 10 to 15 per cent of new diagnoses of colorectal cancer are in people under age 50.

Looking back earlier in her career, Gill would estimate that only about one in 40 of her colon cancer patients were under 50, which is considered early onset of the disease.

She said cancer stats show that the risk of early onset colorectal cancer is now almost two and a half times higher for people born after 1980 versus previous generations.

"I do feel that we need to, in Canada, look very seriously at lowering our age of screening to age 45."

Brigante is now nearing the end of a series of 12 chemotherapy sessions and says his main tumour appears to be shrinking. The goal is to get to a place where he can have colorectal and peritoneal surgeries.