Remembering Tony Snow and Understanding Colorectal Cancer Under 50

What was reported at the time

Tony Snow wrote editorials, hosted Fox News Sunday, and from 2006 was White House press secretary for President George W. Bush. NPR reported that he died on Saturday 12 July 2008, at 53.

The Associated Press reported in March 2007 that Snow, then 51, had his colon removed in 2005 and had six months of chemotherapy after a diagnosis of colon cancer. He had recently passed the two-year mark clear of it.

That March, surgeons removed a growth in his abdomen, near the site of the first cancer. It turned out to be cancerous, and the disease had spread to his liver. NPR reported that he stepped down as press secretary in late summer 2007 during that recurrence.

Everything above is what was said publicly at the time. Nothing here adds a stage, a drug, or a prognosis that was never disclosed.

A cancer that usually starts as a bump

Colorectal cancer means cancer of the colon or the rectum, the last few feet of the digestive tract.

Most of it begins as a polyp — a small growth on the inner lining of the bowel. Polyps are not cancer, and most never become cancer. But some do, over a period of years.

That slow start is the single most useful fact about this disease. It is why screening works differently here than almost anywhere else in oncology. A colonoscopy that finds a polyp and takes it out has not caught a cancer early. It has stopped one from ever forming.

The pattern under 50

Snow was in his late forties when he was diagnosed. He was not unusual, and he has become less unusual since.

NCI reports that since the 1990s the rate of colorectal cancer has been rising steadily among adults younger than 50, and that more younger people are dying of it. The same article notes that nearly 18,000 people under 50 are diagnosed in the United States in a single year. Rates in older adults have fallen over the same period, largely because of screening.

Why is not settled. NCI points to three interlinked suspects: diet high in processed meat and fat and low in fruit and vegetables, being overweight, and changes in gut bacteria and inflammation. Inherited conditions such as Lynch syndrome matter, but NCI reports they account for only 10% to 20% of early-onset cases. Most young patients have no family history at all.

There is a practical consequence, and it is about delay. When a 38-year-old reports rectal bleeding, cancer is not the first thought — not for the patient, and often not for the clinician. Bleeding gets put down to hemorrhoids. Months pass.

When to get checked

Any of these lasting more than a few weeks is worth an appointment, at any age:

• Blood in the stool, bright red or very dark, or bleeding from the rectum.
• A change in bowel habit — looser, harder, or more urgent — that persists beyond three or four weeks.
• A feeling that the bowel has not fully emptied after going.
• Cramping or abdominal pain that keeps coming back in the same place.
• Losing weight without trying.
• Tiredness or breathlessness from anemia, which can be the first sign of slow bleeding you never see.

Being under 50 is not a reason to wait. If a symptom is explained away and it does not go away, it is reasonable to go back and say so. Our page on colorectal cancer symptoms sets out what to describe.

For people with no symptoms, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening from age 45. It grades screening for adults 50 to 75 as an A recommendation and for adults 45 to 49 as a B recommendation, and says clinicians should offer it selectively between 76 and 85 based on health and prior screening. A first-degree relative with colorectal cancer can change that timetable, which is a conversation rather than a rule. Our guide to colorectal cancer screening compares the test options.

What treatment involves

For cancer that has not spread, the main treatment is surgery to remove the affected segment of bowel along with nearby lymph nodes, then rejoin the ends. Chemotherapy after surgery is offered when the nodes are involved or when other features suggest higher risk.

Rectal cancer is handled differently from colon cancer, because the rectum sits in a tight pelvic space next to nerves that control continence. Radiation and chemotherapy before surgery are common there.

Colorectal cancer that has spread to the liver is not automatically untreatable. When the liver deposits are limited, surgery on them can be part of a plan aimed at cure — one of the few situations in oncology where that is true of metastatic disease.

What the registry shows

SEER reprints American Cancer Society projections of about 158,850 new colorectal cancers in the United States in 2026 and about 55,230 deaths. The median age at diagnosis is 66.

For people diagnosed between 2016 and 2022, five-year relative survival is 91.3% when the cancer is still confined to the bowel wall, 75.2% once it has reached nearby lymph nodes, and 16.9% once it has spread to distant organs. Across all stages it is 65.4%. About a third of cases — 34% — are found at that earliest stage.

These are averages across a large group diagnosed years ago. They describe a population and not any individual, and they cannot be read as a forecast.

What this story cannot tell you

A recurrence in one person says nothing about recurrence in another. Most people treated for early colorectal cancer do not have one.

Snow's case also cannot tell you your own risk. What it illustrates is timing: he was diagnosed below the age at which routine screening then began, and the trend that made his age less exceptional has continued.

And "colorectal cancer is preventable through screening" is true as a statement about populations and blunt as a statement to a person already diagnosed. Screening lowers the odds. It does not eliminate them, and no one who develops this disease has failed at anything.

Sources

• NPR: Tony Snow, Former Bush Spokesman, Dies At 53
• NBC News / Associated Press: Tony Snow's abdominal growth cancerous
• NCI: Why Is Colorectal Cancer Rising Rapidly among Young Adults?
• U.S. Preventive Services Task Force: Colorectal Cancer Screening
• NCI SEER Cancer Stat Facts: Colorectal Cancer

How this article was prepared

An AI-assisted editorial system helped prepare this page. No named medical reviewer has reviewed it unless one is listed.

Cancer Explained is published by the National Cancer Information Foundation. It is not medical advice and does not suggest a test or treatment.

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