EXCLUSIVE Tragic victims of America’s young colon cancer epidemic: From ‘healthy’ father killed at 29 to make-up artist, 35, whose stage three tumor was misdiagnosed three times

A deadly cancer that can go undetected for years is affecting young people at an exponential rate and destroying families in the process.

While cancers have been steadily declining in recent decades, scientists have been baffled by an explosion of cases of colorectal cancer, also known as colon cancer, in younger adults who have traditionally had a low risk for the disease.

Daniel Lucas, who was 27 at the time, started having blood in his stool in 2017, but for two years he was misdiagnosed while doctors thought he had colitis, Crohn’s disease and appendicitis.

The tumor was not detected until it progressed to stage three, meaning it had spread outside the colon. Daniel died at age 35 in 2022.

Jordan Knight, from Bethel Park in Pennsylvania, was deprived of seeing his son grow up after he was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer when he was just 29 years old.

Daniel (right) became best friends with makeup mogul Jeffree Star after the couple met in the early 2000s in Los Angeles.

In the 1990s, only 11 percent of colorectal cancer cases occurred among people under 55 years of age. But tragically, cases have more than doubled and people in that age group now account for a fifth of all new diagnoses, according to the latest 2021 data.

Experts aren’t sure what’s behind this 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.

At the end of 2016 he began to feel tired and have intestinal problems, but he 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 gone. 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 they operated to remove his appendix, which turned out to be unnecessary.

What happened to Daniel is becoming an increasingly common story, as doctors often do not suspect cancer in people so young, which can lead to misdiagnoses.

After recovering from the operation, Daniel’s symptoms persisted.

Doctors suspected he might have Crohn’s disease.

His aunt, Tami Pangelina, told DailyMail.com: ‘They never offered him a colonoscopy or talked to him about maybe colon cancer, anything, because of his age. He was very young.

Daniel was finally diagnosed with stage three colon cancer at age 27.

Data from JAMA Surgery showed that colon cancer is expected to increase by 90 percent in people ages 20 to 34 by 2030. Doctors aren’t sure what is driving this mysterious increase.

But if the cancer is not detected until the third stage, the five-year survival rate drops to 71 percent. In the fourth stage, only 14 percent of patients live another five years.

Daniel began seeing an oncologist in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he lived, and went through several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation.

Doctors told him they had been able to get rid of everything, but his symptoms returned several months later.

The cancer had returned, so he received more chemotherapy and radiation and was declared cancer-free again.

Pangelina said: ‘I was happy. She was trying to live life. She 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 couple met in the early 2000s in Los Angeles, “when they were both trying to make ends meet,” Pangelina said. “They met, they clicked and that was it.”

Daniel and his aunt Tami in Central Park on a trip to New York in March 2022

Daniel in the hospital receiving treatment for his colon cancer

In Wyoming, black ice caused the couple to get into a car accident in which the car overturned.

While in the emergency room for the accident, doctors again found a mass in Daniel’s stomach.

He flew back to Las Vegas to see his doctors, but they told him nothing more could be done.

The cancer grew to the point where Daniel could no longer eat because the tumors blocked his intestines, meaning he couldn’t digest anything.

He had to get another bag for his stomach, which he used 18 hours a day to get his nutrition in liquid form.

“Everything he loved (food, beauty, his aesthetic as a human being) was taken from him. It was really, really, really devastating,” her aunt said.

“We went to the hospital and he disappeared five days later,” Mrs. Pangelina said. Daniel died on November 26, 2022.

‘He was a beautiful person. “He loved life and wanted to do so much more,” she said.

Meanwhile, Jordan, from Pennsylvania, started noticing she was losing weight in October 2018, when she started noticing intestinal problems, weight loss, and blood in her stool.

His doctor suggested he have a colonoscopy.

His mother, Lynne Ireland-Knight, told DailyMail.com: “Thank God his doctor didn’t just say, ‘You’re young, it’s not a problem,’ because, unfortunately, that’s what people hear all the time.”

Regular colon cancer screening in the United States does not begin until age 45.

Mrs Ireland-Knight was getting ready for work when Jordan called her and immediately said: “Mom, they found a mass.”

“That’s when our whole world changed,” he said.

The 29-year-old was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. He tried multiple different treatments and surgeries and participated in clinical trials.

After his initial round of chemotherapy, he underwent surgery to remove the tumor, but the surgeon discovered that the cancer had spread to his liver.

In January 2021, the surgeon told Jordan and his family that nothing more could be done.

They recommended that Jordan be moved to hospice, but he was not receptive.

‘I was very angry, and rightly so. I was 31 years old.’

Jordan died on March 8, 2021, leaving behind “a lovely daughter-in-law and a beautiful grandson,” Ireland-Knight said.

Ms Ireland-Knight remained at Jordan’s side the night he died.

“I gave him his medications 24 hours a day,” he said. “I still have all the alarms set that night for every three hours I had to get up and give it that.”

Since her death, Ms Ireland-Knight has become a death doula, someone trained to advise, inform and offer emotional comfort to people who are close to death.

“I’m working with people so that hopefully their death experiences are better than my son’s,” she said.

“His legacy will be my transformation and I believe he saved his younger brother’s life.”

Thanks to Jordan’s experience, Ms Ireland-Knight’s youngest son, who is 30, had his first colonoscopy at age 26 and now has it every three years.

Like Pangelina, Ireland-Knight also became an ambassador for Fight Colorectal Cancer.

Colorectal cancer usually 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 begin to divide uncontrollably, triggering cancer.

It often causes no or very few symptoms in the early stages, which is why doctors say everyone age 45 and older should be screened for cancer once a decade. It is also possible to have an exam at a young age after talking to doctors.

Early warning signs of the disease may include a change in bowel habits, blood in the stool, unexplained weight loss, and sudden fatigue or weakness caused by blood loss.

If caught in the early stages, before it spreads to other areas, the charity Fight colorectal cancer says nine out of ten patients will live more than five years after their diagnosis.

But if the cancer is not detected until the third stage, the five-year survival rate drops to 71 percent. In the fourth stage, only 14 percent of patients live another five years.