A study of national cancer registry data showed that the incidence of early onset colorectal cancer continued to rise in Aotearoa New Zealand over the period 2000 to 2020, and at a faster rate in Māori. During the study period, a total of 56,761 cases of colorectal cancer were diagnosed, of which 3702 were early onset colorectal cancer. While the age-standardised incidence of colorectal cancer decreased significantly from 61.0 to 47.3 cases per 100,000 overall, there was no significant change in Māori. Early onset colorectal cancer incidence increased by approximately 26% per decade (p≤0.0001) overall, and by approximately 36% per decade in Māori (p≤0.0005). By 2040, the incidence of early onset colorectal cancer it predicted to rise from 8.00 to 14.9 per 100,000 (6.33 to 10.00 per 100,000 in Māori).
