April 20, 2026
3 min read
Key takeaways:
- Most screen-detectable cancers are identified symptomatically in young adults.
- Genetic testing, family history collection and empowerment can help facilitate earlier screening.
SAN FRANCISCO — Breast, colorectal and prostate cancers account for most screen-detectable cancers in adults aged under 50 years, with most “unfortunately diagnosed symptomatically,” a presenter at ACP’s Internal Medicine Meeting said.
“These patients are coming to their doctors once symptoms already develop,” Veda N. Giri, MD, a professor of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine and director of Yale’s Cancer Genetics and Prevention Program, said. “We know at that point that the chances of having the cancer caught at an earlier stage potentially reduces, so the outcomes can be tougher in terms of having optimal outcomes when patients present with later-stage disease in this age group.”
Genetic testing, family history collection and empowerment can help facilitate earlier cancer screening. Image: Adobe Stock
Giri said clinicians can use several approaches to improve access to recommended screenings for these patients. Among them include conducting systematic family history collection and teaching patients how to collect family history.
Giri acknowledged that collecting data on past cancers in families can be difficult as well as stigmatizing but “it’s as much as we can open the door to that conversation about soliciting family history and having that be something that is done every so often because family history can change. There can be new family members diagnosed with a cancer. There’s a lot of these barriers to overcome, [but] it’s really important because it can be critical to help guide early cancer screening and strategies for cancer screening, let alone genetic testing.”
Some resources for family history collection include My Family Health Portrait, which “is a free online tool that can be used for patients to go in and play around with [and] put in their information about family history,” Giri said. “It’s done in a deidentified, anonymous way … this then can be brought to their doctors.”
Another strategy is building electronic medical record pathways or leveraging digital tools for identifying greater risk.
Giri noted that guidelines for early cancer screenings “are very complex, so thinking about leveraging the electronic health record would be opportune when we’re in practice.”
She highlighted a resource developed at Yale called the Helix Webtool, “where we had targeted key questions a health care provider or their clinical staff could ask a patient regarding prostate cancer genetic testing. They were high-priority questions that should be able to be done in a timely way, and the output is, ‘Yes, this patient needs current scientific literature guidelines and evidence to consider genetic testing.’”
“So, it’s just another way to think about how digital tools can be very helpful here,” Giri said.
Clinicians should also consider genetic testing “once family history is collected or if there are young ages of diagnosis for your patient population,” Giri said.
Proactively building partnerships with genetics and cancer risk programs can additionally be beneficial and “is really important,” she said. “We work very closely with our community primary care practices, internal medicine practices, subspecialty practices and surgical practices across the state of Connecticut. We are very engaged with our community and within our system to make sure that we are working together for the sake of our patients in terms of risk, screening and genetic testing.”
Finally, Giri advised clinicians to facilitate screening by empowering patients and their families “to discuss symptoms that are coming up to their doctors. This is such an important point. Younger individuals may not be aware that symptoms, [like] blood in their stool that is consistent or abdominal pain that is not going away, need to be brought to a doctor’s attention. These are very busy individuals, and cancer awareness may not just be on top of mind.”
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Giri V. Diagnosis of screen-detectable cancer in adults under the age of 50. Presented at: ACP Internal Medicine Meeting; April 16-18, 2026; San Francisco.
Disclosures:
Giri reports no relevant financial disclosures.
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