Colorectal cancer screening should start five years earlier — at 45 — expert panel says

A national panel of medical experts recommended on Tuesday that most Americans start being screened for colorectal cancer five years earlier than called for in current guidelines — at age 45 instead of 50 — to combat increasing rates of the illness in younger people. With 53,200 people expected to die this year, the disease is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men and women in the U.S. But with early screening, it is among the most preventable forms of cancer.