Tragic disease Cancer tumors are particularly dramatic for young adults

Why a cancer disease hits young adults particularly hard
The diagnosis of cancer is a major blow to all people. Young adults who get sick of it usually have a particularly hard time. They are often still in education or studying. In addition, they are often not optimally supplied.

Improve help for young cancer patients
Why me? How should I continue my life? What kind of pain is coming to me? Such questions usually arise immediately when patients are diagnosed with cancer. Everyone then has to quickly find an answer to the question "What is important now?". Young people with cancer often have a particularly strong diagnosis. Not a few of them are in the middle of their studies, some have small children. The foundation "Young adults with cancer" wants to improve the help for patients in this age group.

The diagnosis of cancer is initially a shock to all people. It is especially hard for young patients. They are often not financially self-sufficient or have small children. (Image: auremar / fotolia.com)

A major turning point in life planning
The idea for the foundation founded by the German Society of Hematology and Medical Oncology (DGHO) is based on the knowledge that a cancer diagnosis, especially for patients between the ages of 18 and 39 years, makes a serious impact on the whole life. and planning for the future means ", writes the foundation on its website.

"Here, the problems and challenges clearly differ both from patients in the field of pediatric oncology as well as oncology in adults over the age of 40," it says further.

Young adults with cancer are better off in the oncology of children
According to a report by the news agency dpa, the foundation reported that on average around 15,000 people between the ages of 18 and 39 get cancer every year. With a total of about 480,000 new cancers per year, this is almost three percent.

Since doctors do not always think of cancer in young patients, diagnoses can be delayed. Physicians also occasionally take on waiting times, for example on magnetic resonance examinations. "I am sometimes shocked, as the timing is," said the Göttingen pediatric oncologist Christof Kramm on cancer treatment of adults.

For young adults suffering from cancer, it would therefore be better to be treated in pediatric oncology at a clinic. "A 23-year-old is certainly better worn by the overall atmosphere of a children's ward than if he is next to an 80-year-old," said Kramm. On the one hand there is a better caring key at wards for children and adolescents, on the other hand there are also more psychologists and social workers in action.

Some types of cancer meet younger people more often
Some types of cancer meet young adults more often than average. According to the foundation, these include skin cancer, cervical cancer, testicular cancer, breast cancer, sarcoma (infested bone, cartilage and adipose tissue) and Hodgkin's lymphoma (infested lymphatic system).

Worry about lack of financial security
The lack of financial security also plays a major role for young patients: "Suddenly the patients are confronted with special problems and decisions outside the illness: desire for a child and family planning, a possible interruption of the educational path or economic and social emergencies. Issues that come to the fore next to the best possible medical cancer therapy, "it says on the website of the foundation.

Cancer patients were terminated apartment
"Here we had cases where students with cancer cut the BAföG or their apartment was terminated," said Foundation spokeswoman Frauke Frodl in the dpa message. "In contrast to children, adolescents and elderly patients, the topic of having children is also of paramount importance," explained Inken Hilgendorf, oncologist at the University Hospital Jena.

In any case, the risk of imminent infertility as a result of necessary therapies must be addressed from the beginning. According to the Foundation's information, health insurance companies generally do not finance the freezing of oocytes and sperm before chemotherapy. If young adults have already established a family at the time of the diagnosis, they are burdened with the concern for the child and the separation during hospital stays.

Good cure rates
It is gratifying that there are now better therapies for young adults with cancer. The cure rate is good, around 80 percent of young sufferers survive the disease. However, there are only a few studies on the long-term consequences of successful therapies in people between the ages of 18 and 39 years.

According to Peter Kaatsch, head of the German Childhood Cancer Registry at the Mainz University Medical Center, adults who have been treated as children with cancer have a two-digit percentage of long-term consequences such as kidney or brain damage. A future goal of the therapy must be that the patients survive the cancer if possible without late consequences. (Ad)