London, UK: An analysis of new data by a leading cancer researcher has revealed specific cancers that are most likely to affect teenagers and young adults, and it points to infections, adolescent growth spurts, and hormones as being among the possible causes. Now, international collaborative research is needed to find out more.
Professor Jillian Birch told a news briefing at the 4th International Conference on Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Medicine, organised by the charity Teenage Cancer Trust, that her analysis of a new data set [1] of more than 1.6 million cases of cancer in people aged between 0 and 79 in England during the period 1995-2003 showed that there was a category of cancers that had a peak incidence between the ages of 13 to 24.
"These can be regarded as 'true' teenage and young adult cancers that typically occur specifically in this age group, rather than being either the tail-end of childhood cancers, the majority of which occur below the age of 10, or the unusually early development of cancers typical of older ages, most of which occur over the age of 60," said Professor Birch, who is Cancer Research UK Professorial Fellow at the University of Manchester.
"We already knew from our earlier research that the most common groups of cancers in teenagers and young adults are lymphomas, germ cell tumours, leukaemias, brain tumours, bone tumours and soft tissue sarcomas. However, unlike the childhood embryonal tumours, these groups of cancers can be seen at all ages. This new research shows that there are specific types of cancers within these groups that show a main peak of incidence in 13 to 24-year-olds. These are: Hodgkin lymphoma, osteosarcoma, Ewing sarcoma, certain rare soft tissue sarcomas (such as alveolar soft part sarcoma), germ cell tumours of the testis and ovary, and germ cell tumours in the brain.
"These tumours together represent one third of all can
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Contact: Emma Mason
wordmason@mac.com
44-077-112-96986
Teenage Cancer Trust
29-Mar-2006