Kids with cancer

Kids with cancer are a great concern to every person. One of our goals is to keep you informed about the latest news in cancer research. This New York Times article has a date of March 15, 2010.

The group of patients addressed here are teenagers. Cancer is not unusual in children. One in 333 children develop some kind of malignancy by age 20. However, cancer leads to more deaths in the 15 to 19 age group than any other single illness!

Adolescent Issues

They are no longer kids with cancer and they are not yet adults. Where is the best place to treat them – in a pediatric medical center with toddlers or in an adult cancer center?

Teenagers, as a group, have not benefited from the huge advances in survival made by younger children. They are far less likely to participate in clinical trials. These clinical trials provide the most up-to-date therapies. Fewer than 1 in 5 adolescents with cancer receive treatment through a clinical trial.

Experts say that teenagers are reluctant to confide in adults about embarrassing physical changes. Therefore, they are likely to be diagnosed later than younger children. This, then, means more aggressive and longer treatment protocols.

Teenagers seem to develop a different set of cancer than older adults. The most common are lymphoma, leukemia, and brain tumors. Sometimes cancers of the muscles and connective tissue are thought to be sports injuries. Delay is common in diagnosing teenage cancer.

Dr. Archie Bleyer is from the St Charles Medical Center in Bend, Oregon. He is an expert on teenage cancers. He said, "Teenagers fall into a cancer gap – a real no-man’s land." The teenagers "need psychosocial support, which they are not going to get if they are in an adult hospital."

An Arizona group started offering year-round social support to teenagers several years ago. Heather, a local high school student with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, spear headed the effort. She had tried support groups first, for adults and then, for children. Neither one quite fit the bill.

Only two of her closest friends stuck with her through her ordeal. The rest of the high school community forgot about her because she missed most of 9^th and 10^th grades. The problems of teen-agers are real and the medical community is looking at those issues.

A social worker said there is no good time in life to get cancer, but the adolescent years may be the hardest. Just when they are seeking independence they become dependent again. Just when they want to look attractive, they deal with hair loss and bloating from chemotherapy and steroids and radiation.

A Clinical Study

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a common cancer in children. Teenagers with this type of leukemia do not fare as well as younger children with the exact same disease. This discrepancy has puzzled oncologists who care for them.

When researchers compared teenagers treated by pediatric oncologists with those treated by adult cancer doctors, they found that the pediatric treatment group did remarkably better. The differences were startling. There was a 30-percentage point difference in survival.

The question remains why this is so? Is it because of the structured environment of a pediatric center? Is it because the oncologists know more about leukemia? Or is the treatment protocol different?

I would bet money on the fact that pediatric oncologists know how to speak to young people and how to interact with them.

Breast Cancer

Although breast cancer is very rare in teenagers, young women need to be attentive to good health practices. They can easily perform a monthly breast self-exam once they are sixteen. They can become familiar with their breasts and what they normally feel like.

Breast lumps that do occur in adolescent girls are usually fibroadenomas, which are benign tumors in the breast. Their cause is unknown. Unless the young woman’s mother had breast cancer at an early age, she does not need to worry about breast cancer.

Conclusion

Kids with cancer is an interesting topic. Teenagers need attention they do not seem to be getting. Parents should pay close attention to unusual complaints from teenagers. And, finally, the adult cancer community needs to learn something from the pediatric cancer centers.

Hopefully you have learned something from reading this article. Feel free to send us your questions. We are here to answer them and help you.

Margaret Stenerson

March 17, 2010