TREATMENT | #AYAWeek 2016

Teens & Young Adults deserve to have treatment and support designed specifically for their age group.

Cancer treatments are mostly designed for children or older people. Teenagers can get early onset adult cancers and young adults can get late onset pediatric cancers that make them difficult to treat. Treatments need to be designed specifically for this age group. For example, in the treatment of Lymphoma and Leukemia we have seen that the use of pediatric protocols with young adults has produced improvement in long term survival by over 25%. This would not have been possible had it not been for the collaboration of clinical experts in pediatric and adult centers.

We must also consider the psychological and social needs of teens and young adults during their treatment and medical procedures. It is just as crucial to understand how to deal with feelings of isolation as it is to receive the appropriate dosage of chemo. It is also essential that we create and deliver coordinated survivorship programs for this unique age group and address the challenges that they will have to face in the future.

Bradley J Zebrack discusses how CANCER POSES UNIQUE CHALLENGES TO YOUNGER PATIENTS – AND THEIR ONCOLOGISTS in his article. READ MORE>

SUPPORTING TEENS AND YOUNG ADULTS THROUGH CANCER READ MORE > 

This week we are raising awareness for #AYAWeek at Teen Cancer America. Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) Cancer encompasses about 70,000 young people (ages 15-39) diagnosed each year in the United States. According to The NIH’s National Cancer Institute, this is about six times the number of cancers diagnosed in children ages 0-14. You’ve heard us talk a lot about teens (we are Teen Cancer America after all!) and our focus on 13-25 year olds, but the AYA group deals with many of the same roadblocks that our TYA group encounters.

Join us on Facebook • Twitter • Instagram for more #AYAWeek at Teen Cancer America