Trends in Early-Onset Colorectal Cancer in Singapore: Epidemiological Study of a Multiethnic Population
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Colorectal cancer (CRC) incidence and mortality in those aged 50 years and above have decreased over the past 2 decades. However, there is a rising incidence of CRC among individuals under 50 years of age, termed early-onset colorectal cancer (EOCRC). Patients with EOCRC are diagnosed at an advanced stage and may be in more psychosocial, emotional, and financial distress. OBJECTIVE: Our study examined the epidemiological shifts in CRC in Singapore, a multiethnic country. METHODS: CRCs diagnosed at age 20 years and above were identified from the Singapore Cancer Registry (SCR) from 1968 to 2019. Patient characteristics included gender, ethnicity, and age of CRC diagnosis. Population information was obtained from the Department of Statistics Singapore (SingStat). Age-specific incidence rates (ASRs) and age-standardized incidence rates (ASIRs) were calculated. The cohort was divided into 3 age groups: 20-49, 50-64, and ≥65 years. Temporal trends in incidence rates were modeled with joinpoint regression. Birth cohort models were fitted using the National Cancer Institute (NCI) age-period-cohort analysis tool. Cancer-specific survival analysis was performed with the Cox proportional hazards model. RESULTS: In total, 53,044 CRCs were included, and 6183 (11.7%) adults aged 20-49 years were diagnosed with EOCRC. The ASR of EOCRC rose from 5 per 100,000 population in 1968 to 9 per 100,000 population in 1996 at 2.1% annually and rose to 10 per 100,000 population in 2019 at 0.64% annually. The ASR for CRC among adults aged 50-64 years rose at 3% annually from 1968 to 1987 and plateaued from 1987, while the ASR for adults aged 65 years and above rose at 4.1% annually from 1968 to 1989 and 1.3% annually from 1989 to 2003 but decreased from 2003 onwards at 1% annually. The ASR of early-onset rectal cancer increased significantly at 1.5% annually. There was a continued rise in the ASR of EOCRC among males (annual percentage change [APC] 1.5%) compared to females (APC 0.41%). Compared to the 1950-1954 reference birth cohort, the 1970-1984 birth cohort had a significantly higher incidence rate ratio (IRR) of 1.17-1.36 for rectal cancer, while there was no significant change for colon cancer in later cohorts. There were differences in CRC trends across the 3 ethnic groups: Malays had a rapid and persistent rise in the ASR of CRC across all age groups (APC 1.4%-3%), while among young Chinese, only the ASR of rectal cancer was increasing (APC 1.5%). Patients with EOCRC had better survival compared to patients diagnosed at 65 years and above (hazard ratio [HR] 0.73, 95% CI 0.67-0.79, P<.001) after adjusting for covariates. CONCLUSIONS: The rise in the incidence of rectal cancer among young adults, especially among Chinese and Malays, in Singapore highlights the need for further research to diagnose CRC earlier and reduce cancer-related morbidity and mortality.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".