Death rates from cancer among teenagers and young adults have shown a dramatic fall in the UK in the last four decades. Better and more specialised treatment is thought to be behind the halving of the death rate since the 1970s.
Figures from the charity Cancer Research UK show that the cancer death rate in the teenage and young adult age group has fallen from 580 every year from 1975-77 to 300 a year in 2008-10.
Cancer Research UK’s Cancer Statistics Report: Teenage and Young Adult Cancer has revealed that every year around 2,1000 young people in the 15-24 age group are diagnosed with cancer.
Cancer is still only second to transport accidents as the main cause of death in this age group and while cancer mortality rates have fallen, the number of cancer diagnoses in this age group has been rising year on year since the 1990s.
However, the statistics show that more young people are surviving cancer with deaths from leukaemia showing the biggest fall. The most common cancer death in the 15-24 age group is now from brain tumours.
The report calls for more young people to be involved in clinical trials that could improve their treatment and chances of surviving the disease. At the moment strict age limits prevent many younger patients being involved in the trials conducted by research institutes and the pharmaceutical industry yet this age group is most likely to be affected by rare cancers such as sarcomas. The age limits are in place because young people cannot be given the same dose of drugs as adults so Cancer Research UK wants clinical trials that are specifically designed for young people to become the norm.
The Cancer Research UK report was produced in collaboration with the North West Cancer Intelligence Unit and the Institute of Cancer Studies at the University of Manchester.
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