The number of deaths among teenagers and young adults due to cancer in the UK has been cut in half since the 1970s, according to new data from Cancer Research UK.
The number of deaths among children and young adults dropped from close to 580 annually in 1975-1977 to 300 in 2008-2010. The largest reduction was in young patients with leukemia.
Although these numbers are noteworthy, they disguise the lack of drug development and clinical trial access in several cancers that are present in this age group.
Experts think that altering the way some adolescents and young adults are treated – in a method similar to children instead of adults – means that they are now improving with some cancers, like the leukemias.
The biggest reduction in deaths was in leukemias during the last fifteen years – from an average of 54 deaths annually in 1995-1999 to 39 deaths in 2006-2010 in adolescent males. In females, it decreased from an average of 38 to 21 deaths annually.
Additionally, there are currently fewer males dying from non-hodgkin lymphoma than there used to be – decreasing from an average of 20 deaths annually in 1995-1999 to 14 deaths annually in 2006-2010.
Professor Jillian Birch, a Cancer Research UK teenage cancer expert and collaborator on the report from The University of Manchester, said:
“We’ve made great progress in helping more teenagers and young adults survive cancer, and today over 80 per cent will beat the disease. But there remains a problem with getting teenagers and young adults on to clinical trials – less than 20 per cent are on trials compared to around 50 to 70 per cent of children.
We need to drastically improve this so that we can develop better treatments, help more teenagers and young adults survive the disease and offer hope to patients with harder to treat cancers. And this is the kind of work that the new Manchester Cancer Research Centre will work hard to do – bringing together a wide range of expertise to revolutionize cancer treatment.”
Experts are pleased with the decrease in numbers. However, they note there has been little or no progress for some rarer cancers which affect the younger population, such as sarcomas.
Each year, nearly 2,100 adolescents and young adults are diagnosed with cancer in the U.K. The most frequent cancer that is diagnosed are the lymphomas (a fifth) and close to two-thirds of these are Hodgkin lymphomas.
The prevalence of nearly all kinds of young adult and teenage cancers is increasing. Cancer is still the number one cause of death from any disease amongst young adults and teenagers.
Dr Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, concluded:
“Being diagnosed with cancer is a devastating time for patients, their family and friends. More needs to be done to make treatments more effective and kinder. Drug development and clinical trials are at the heart of helping more teenagers and young adults both survive cancer and live a full life after their treatment. Too many young people are left out of clinical trials due to rigid age restrictions and this must change for us to continue to see improvements across all cancer types.”
This report comes on the heels of other research released earlier this year, also by Cancer Research U.K., which revealed that men are more than one third (35%) more likely to die of cancer in the UK than women.
A separate study reported that cancer deaths are predicted to decrease by 17% in the U.K. by 2030.
Written by Kelly Fitzgerald