Rare cancer with nonspecific symptoms increasing among millennials
A study published in Annals of Internal Medicine indicates a surprising increase in appendix cancer rates among Millennials and Generation X, suggesting a higher disease burden in younger generations.
The study assessed data from 4,858 patients diagnosed with appendix cancer between 1975 and 2019, categorising them into five-year age groups to understand how the risk evolved over the years.
Compared to the 1945 birth cohort, the incidence of appendix cancer more than tripled in individuals born around 1980 and quadrupled by the birth cohort of 1985.
Researchers suggest that environmental, lifestyle, and genetic factors intensified after World War II, such as dietary patterns, gut bacteria alterations, and gastrointestinal inflammation, may explain the increase.
The study calls for more research, particularly involving genomics data, to uncover the mechanisms driving this trend and urges physicians to revisit screening protocols and develop early detection biomarkers.
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Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
Paramedic's brain tumour missed five times by doctors
A paramedic has said her brain tumour was missed five times by doctors. Hannah Lemanski, 24, thought she was experiencing symptoms of stress from shift work when she complained to medics about vomiting, headaches, and double vision. She first visited her GP in February 2023 after experiencing headaches and vision problems for two months, but was sent home with no answer and told her symptoms would be passed on to another doctor. On her fourth visit to the GP she was told she had a lazy eye. After a fifth visit to the eye assessment clinic, an MRI scan diagnosed her with central neurocytoma – a rare brain tumour which grows in the ventricles of the brain. She had 80 per cent of the tumour removed in surgery but two years on it is returning. Doctors recommended gamma-knife radiosurgery to shrink the mass but this is not funded by NHS England for her specific tumour type. The treatment is recognised by the NHS and used to treat various health conditions, including brain tumours, both benign and cancerous. She is now fundraising to get the treatment privately. Ms Lemanski, from Middlesborough, said she thought she was going to die when she was first told of her diagnosis. Her wedding to her now-husband, Przemek Lemanski, 34, who was delivering invitations at the time of the diagnosis, had to be delayed. She underwent surgery to remove 80 per cent of the tumour James Cook hospital in May 2023 and returned to work as a paramedic. During a routine scan in March 2025, she was told her tumour is returning. The NHS offers conventional radiotherapy, a destructive treatment which can lead to more cancer developing, but doctors told Hannah the most effective treatment is gamma-knife surgery – a non-invasive and highly targeted form of radiotherapy. But Ms Lemanski was told by The National Centre for Stereotactic Radiosurgery in Sheffield's Royal Hallamshire Hospital that they don't offer this treatment for her condition – and said NHS England does not commission funds for this treatment and her specific tumour type. She applied for individual funding, but this was rejected. She said: 'It's quite upsetting. You pay your taxes every month and you expect to be looked after when you need it. How can you not look after one of your own? 'Maybe if I wasn't someone who worked for the NHS, I might have just accepted the conventional radiotherapy route, which I think for anyone of a young age without cancer puts them at so much higher risk, especially when there's more effective treatments out there. 'I think it's quite discriminatory really, because I don't understand why someone's brain tumour is better than mine.' Her friend Becky Calpin, 32, has raised over £12,000 to help Ms Lemanski get private treatment, but it could cost up to £20,000. Becky said: 'Hannah is more than a paramedic – she's a bright, healthy, active young woman, married to her best friend and dreaming of starting a family. 'She's the kind of person who lights up every room – always smiling, always giving, always ready to help.' An NHS England spokesperson said: 'We understand the importance of making decisions quickly to avoid unnecessary distress and, where treatment isn't routinely funded, clinicians can submit an individual funding request if there are exceptional clinical reasons. 'The NHS funds specialist stereotactic radiosurgery and radiotherapy for some cancers where there is evidence of a clinical benefit over standard treatments, as part of the personalised care provided for patients.'
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Third delay to ME care plan prompts backlash from patients
Health ministers have delayed a plan for the future treatment of the debilitating condition myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) for the third time in nine months. Work on the ME Delivery Plan — which the government claims will boost research, advance medical education and improve patients' lives — began more than three years ago under the Conservative health secretary, Sajid Javid. Labour ministers have repeatedly pledged to publish the plan and have yet to explain why it has been delayed. Last October the public health minister at the time, Andrew Gwynne, said the government planned to publish 'in the winter of 2024/25'. In December, responding to the inquest into the death of the ME patient, Maeve Boothby O'Neill, 27, the minister told a coroner 'we aim to publish by the end of March'. On June 5, Gwynne's successor, Ashley Dalton, said it was 'a priority for the department to publish the final ME delivery plan by the end of June 2025'. On Saturday, however, a health department spokesperson would only say the plan would be published 'shortly'. ME, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) affects at least 400,000 people in England and Wales. Many people with long Covid experience similar symptoms. The illness is characterised by extreme fatigue, disturbed sleep that does not bring rest and a flare-up of symptoms after even mild exertion (known as post exertional malaise). It is usually triggered by a viral infection and there is no proven cure or treatment. About 25 per cent of sufferers become severely ill with many housebound or bedbound. In a small number of cases patients die. The Times understands the ME initiative has been put on the back burner because the health secretary, Wes Streeting, is determined that nothing should distract from the promotion of his ten-year plan for the NHS. In a further blow to the hopes of ME patients, Streeting has also ruled out any new money for the delivery plan and rejected appeals for a ring-fenced fund to advance ME research. The plea for a specific funding resource was made in a letter signed by all 72 Liberal Democrat MPs. But the health secretary has written back saying ring fencing ME funding 'goes against our commitment to open competition to ensure transparency and scientific excellence'. His statement appears to contradict previous government awards such as the £50 million five-year commitment made in 2021 to finance research into Motor Neurone Disease while last year the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) called for proposals to address 'evidence gaps in liver disease research'. The NIHR is also running an 'open call' for a five-year research consortium to prevent cardiovascular disease. ME campaigners had lobbied for a similar scheme to build a research network and are surprised by Streeting's response. Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, said people with ME and their carers had been left behind for decades. 'They have faced inadequate care, scant research funding, no treatments and little hope of a better future,' she said. 'Further delay to the Delivery Plan for ME is inexcusable. People with ME are right to feel that improving this situation is not a priority for this government. The government must think again, publish the plan without delay and allocate it the resources it needs to make a real difference.' • Severely ill patient with ME begs for home feeding Sonya Chowdhury, of the charity Action for ME, said she was 'deeply dismayed' by another delay to the delivery plan: 'Just weeks ago, the minister gave a public commitment that the plan would be published by the end of June. This is now the third delay in nine months, and the government's language around publication has become increasingly vague. 'The ME community is once again left in the dark — with no clear timeline, no explanation, and growing doubt over whether the plan will appear at all. What message does this send to a group already fighting for basic recognition, where the most severely affected are so often the most neglected?' A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: 'Our thoughts are with all those whose lives have been touched by myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. We are committed to improving the care and support for all those affected and will publish a final delivery plan shortly.'
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Who is in charge at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention?
Who is in charge at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)? The answer is more complicated than it may seem. With no confirmed or acting CDC director, Robert F Kennedy Jr has direct control over the agency, allowing him to sign off – or not – on vaccine recommendations, according to legal experts. Yet Kennedy, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), testified before a Senate committee in May that someone else is running the agency – creating confusion that could lead to legal challenges. 'There's not a CDC director or acting director. Essentially, RFK Jr is the director of the CDC,' said Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Kennedy now has 'a lot more opportunity to actually influence the outcome of these decisions and to take actions in the absence of a Senate-confirmed director', said Renée Landers, professor and director of the health law program at Suffolk University Law School in Boston. The dismissal of 17 independent vaccine advisers and their replacement with less experienced advisers, some of whom have histories of anti-vaccine activism, is 'very concerning', especially given Kennedy's rejection of germ theory and his own anti-vaccine activism, Landers said. On Thursday, the independent vaccine advisers appointed by Kennedy voted to ban thimerosal, a preservative (also known as thiomersal) with a demonstrated safety record, from 4% of flu vaccines in the US. The remaining 96% of flu vaccines, as well as all other childhood vaccines, were already free of thimerosal out of an abundance of caution, despite decades of research indicating the preservative's safety. The move will make it harder for some people to access the flu vaccine. The recommendation would normally be taken up by the CDC director, either to reject, or to implement as official, guidance from the agency. But for now, those decisions go directly to Kennedy, who has already exercised these capabilities before. On 13 May, 'with pending confirmation of a new CDC Director', the health secretary adopted the recommendations for Chikungunya vaccines to be officially recommended by the CDC, according to the agency's website. Kennedy did not sign off on the committee's votes for two other vaccines against RSV and meningitis. Those vaccines, recommended in April by the independent advisers whom Kennedy dismissed this month, still have not gotten official CDC recommendations; it's not clear whether or when they will. Kennedy also recently directed the CDC to change its Covid vaccine recommendations, softening the recommendation for children and ending it for pregnant people entirely, despite strong evidence that pregnancy is a major risk factor for severe illness and death. 'It is concerning that the power vacuum leaves open his ability to make these decisions that are inconsistent with scientific consensus,' Landers said. Congress introduced a new law in 2023 that directors of the CDC must now undergo Senate confirmation. This appointment is the first time the CDC director has gone through the process. 'It is a little bit of uncharted waters,' Landers said. David Weldon was first nominated and then withdrawn hours before his Senate confirmation hearing in March. Susan Monarez served as acting director from 23 January until she was nominated on 24 March, at which point she stepped down. Once someone has been nominated for director, they cannot serve as acting director. Monarez testified in her Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, but it's not clear when lawmakers will vote on the nomination, In the absence of an acting director, the head of HHS has control of the agency, according to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998. Signing off – or not – on CDC recommendations cannot be 'delegated down' to other officials under the vacancies act, said Anne Joseph O'Connell, a professor at Stanford Law School; 'it can only go up' to the HHS secretary. 'What's unusual about this situation is that we generally think having exclusive duties go 'up' to the agency head when there is a lower-level vacancy is a good thing. But here many don't trust the secretary on these matters,' O'Connell said. Kennedy put forth a different name for who is in charge of the CDC in May testimony before the Senate's health, education, labor and pensions committee. 'Who is the acting CDC director?' Lisa Blunt Rochester, the Democratic senator from Delaware, asked. 'The acting director was Susan Monarez, but she is now up for permanent director, so she's been replaced by Matt Buzzelli,' Kennedy said, describing Buzzelli as 'a public health expert'. But there's no indication that Buzzelli, a lawyer who is listed as chief of staff in the office of the CDC director, is acting director, nor is he qualified for the position. 'Buzzelli cannot be the acting CDC head,' O'Connell said. He's not the first assistant to the CDC director, he's not Senate-confirmed, and he did not serve 90 days in the year before the last director of the CDC left, O'Connell said: 'There is no wiggle room.' The lack of clarity is compounded by the Trump administration's non-compliance with information requirements, experts said. The CDC, along with other agencies, is required to update each year an office of personnel management site about who holds which jobs, a deadline the agencies missed in March. Buzzelli 'has been carrying out some of the duties of the CDC Director as the Senior Official, as necessary, and is surrounded by highly qualified medical professionals and advisors to help fulfill these duties as appropriate', Andrew Nixon, HHS director of communications, told Stat News in May. (HHS did not respond to the Guardian's media inquiry.) Such actions could open the officials up to legal challenges. Without official documentation naming Buzzelli and other decision-makers to official positions, they would not have the designated authority to make certain decisions, which means their actions could be challenged. For instance, they may not be authorized to enter into new contracts or end prior agreements early with state, local, tribal and territorial governments – potentially opening up any such actions to lawsuits. 'The person who takes the action has to be someone lawfully appointed to the position. To the extent that agencies try to skirt that kind of requirement, it does leave the decisions vulnerable to legal challenge,' Landers said.
