A Closer Look at Young Adults With Cancer
- Nearly 70,000 young adults in their 20s and 30s are diagnosed with cancer every year, eight times as often as patients under 15, a group that has their own medical specialty.
- Cancer is the leading cause of nonaccidental death among 20- to 39-year-olds.
- Young adults are the demographic group most likely to be under- or uninsured. They're too old for their parents' insurance, yet usually aren't in established careers with full health benefits.
- Only 2% of patients between 20 and 30 years old are in clinical trials, as compared to 60% of patients under 15.
- Improvements in survival rates for young adults have lagged behind the gains made by their older and younger counterparts. In some subsets, there has been NO IMPROVEMENT AT ALL in the last 30 years.
- Cancer is biologically different in young adults. This is a problem because young adults straddle the line between pediatric and adult oncologists, who may treat the same cancer in completely different ways.
Tagged as: articles, real world advice, research
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