A lethal cancer which can go unnoticed for years is striking down young people at an exponential rate — and tearing apart families in the process.
While cancers have steadily fallen over recent decades, scientists have been mystified by an explosion of colorectal cancer cases, also known as colon cancer, in younger adults who have traditionally been at low risk of the disease.
Daniel Lucas, who was 27 at the time, started to get blood in his stool in 2017 but was misdiagnosed for two years while doctors thought he had colitis, Crohn’s disease, and appendicitis.
The tumor was not spotted until it had progressed to stage three, meaning it had spread outside the colon. Daniel died aged 35 in 2022.
Jordan Ireland-Knight, from Bethel Park in Pennsylvania, was robbed of seeing his son grow up after he was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer aged just 29.
Jordan (center) with his parents. He died from colon cancer age 31, leaving behind a wife and son
Daniel (right) became best friends with makeup mogul Jeffree Star after the pair met in the early 2000s in Los Angeles
In the 1990s, just 11 percent of colorectal cancer cases were among people younger than 55 years old. But cases have tragically now more than doubled, with people in that age group now accounting for a fifth of all new diagnoses, according to the latest data for 2021.
Experts are not sure what’s behind the unprecedented rise and are exploring whether modern diets, antibiotics or even fungal infections could be at play.
Daniel was a talented makeup artist from the San Francisco Bay Area in California.
In late 2016, he started feeling tired and having bowel trouble, but put off going to the doctor because he thought it was just nerves or stress.
Blood in his stool in 2017 finally prompted him to see a doctor, but for two years, his cancer would be misdiagnosed.
Initially, doctors thought he had irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and sent him home from the hospital.
Then, they thought it was colitis, then appendicitis, and he underwent surgery to remove his appendix, which turned out to be unnecessary.
What happened to Daniel is becoming an increasingly common tale, as doctors do not usually suspect cancer in people so young, which can lead to misdiagnoses.
After healing from the operation, Daniel’s symptoms persisted.
Medics suspected he might have Crohn’s.
His aunt, Tami Pangelina, told DailyMail.com: ‘They never once offered him a colonoscopy or talk about maybe colon cancer, nothing, because of his age. He was so young.’
Daniel was finally diagnosed aged 27 with stage three colon cancer.
Data from JAMA Surgery showed that colon cancer is expected to rise by 90 percent in people ages 20 to 34 by the year 2030. Doctors are not sure what is driving the mystery rise
But should the cancer not be detected until stage three, the five-year survival rate drops to 71 percent. At stage four, just 14 percent of patients live for another five years.
Daniel started seeing an oncologist in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he was living, and went through several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation.
Doctors told him they were able to get rid of it all, but his symptoms returned several months later.
The cancer had come back, so he had more chemotherapy and radiation and was declared cancer-free again.
Ms Pangelina said: ‘He was happy. He was trying to live life. He had so many things to look forward to.’
In April 2021, while Daniel was driving with his best friend, makeup mogul Jeffree Star, at Star’s ranch in Wyoming.
The pair met in the early 2000s in Los Angeles, ‘when they were both just trying to make ends meet,’ Ms Pangelina said. ‘They met and they clicked, and that was it.’
Daniel and his aunt Tami in Central Park on a trip to New York in March 2022
Daniel at the hospital receiving treatment for his colon cancer
In Wyoming, the black ice caused the pair to have a car accident in which the car rolled over.
While in the ER for the accident, doctors found a mass in Daniel’s stomach again.
He flew back to Las Vegas to see his doctors, but they told him there was nothing more that could be done.
The cancer grew to the point where Daniel could no longer eat food because the tumors were blocking his intestines, meaning he could not digest anything.
He had to get another bag for his stomach, which he wore 18 hours a day to get his nutrition in liquid form.
‘Everything that he loved — food, beauty, his aesthetic as a human — was taken away from him. It was really, really, really devastating,’ his aunt said.
‘We went to the hospital, and he was gone five days later,’ Ms Pangelina said. Daniel died on November 26, 2022.
‘He was a beautiful person. He loved life, and he had so much more he wanted to do,’ she said.
Meanwhile, Jordan, from Pennsylvania, started noticing he was losing weight in October 2018, when he started noticing that he was having bowel issues, losing weight and blood in his stool.
His doctor suggested he get a colonoscopy.
His mother, Lynne Ireland-Knight, told DailyMail.com: ‘Thank goodness his doctor didn’t just say, you’re young, it’s not an issue, because that’s what people hear all the time, unfortunately.’
Regular screening for colon cancer in America does not begin until age 45.
Ms Ireland-Knight was getting ready to go to work when Jordan called her, and said immediately: ‘Mama, they found a mass.’
‘That’s when our whole world just shifted,’ she said.
The 29-year-old was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. He tried multiple different treatments and surgeries, and took part in clinical trials.
After his initial round of chemotherapy, he had surgery to remove the tumor, but the surgeon found that the cancer had spread to his liver.
In January 2021, the surgeon told Jordan and his family there was nothing more that could be done.
They recommended Jordan transfer to a hospice, but he was not receptive to it.
‘He was very angry, and rightly so. He was 31 years old.’
Jordan died on March 8, 2021, leaving behind ‘a lovely daughter-in-law and a beautiful grandson,’ Ms Ireland-Knight said.
Ms Ireland-Knight stayed by Jordan’s side the night that he died.
‘I gave him his medicines around the clock,’ she said. ‘I still have all the alarms set some that night for every three hours that I had to get up and give him that.’
Since his death, Ms Ireland-Knight became a death doula — someone trained to advise, inform, and offer emotional comfort to people who are nearing death.
‘I’m working with people to hopefully make their death experiences better than my son’s was,’ she said.
‘His legacy will be my transformation, and I believe he saved his younger brother’s life.’
Due to Jordan’s experience, Ms Ireland-Knight’s younger son, who is 30, had his first colonoscopy aged 26, and now gets them every three years.
Like Ms Pangelina, Ms Ireland-Knight also became an ambassador for Fight Colorectal Cancer.
Colorectal cancer normally begins as a small growth, called a polyp, on the inner lining of the colon or rectum — part of the large intestine.
Over time, the cells in these polyps can start to divide uncontrollably, triggering the cancer.
It often doesn’t cause any or very few symptoms in the early stages, which is why doctors say everyone aged 45 and over should get screened for the cancer once a decade. It is also possible to get screened at an early age after talking to doctors.
Early warning signs of the disease can include a change in bowel habits, blood in feces, unexplained weight loss and sudden fatigue or weakness — brought on by blood loss.
If caught in the early stages, before it spreads to other areas, the charity Fight Colorectal Cancer says nine in ten patients will live beyond five years after their diagnosis.
But should the cancer not be detected until stage three, the five-year survival rate drops to 71 percent. At stage four, just 14 percent of patients live for another five years.