Understanding the Unique Needs of Younger Adults With Cancer

As cancer diagnoses continue to rise among younger adults, experts are calling for a fundamental shift in how care is delivered across the continuum. This topic was at the forefront of discussion during the plenary session, “The New Face of Cancer: Supporting Younger Adults Across the Care Continuum,” presented at the NCCN Annual Conference.

During the session, Dr. Christopher H. Lieu, who currently serves as associate director for Clinical Research and co-director of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology at the University of Colorado Anschutz, led a conversation focused on improving care for this growing population. Lieu later sat down with CURE to further discuss the topic.

Transcript

Younger adults with cancer often face unique challenges compared with older populations. What are the most pressing unmet needs you are seeing in this group today?

You know, there are even specialized clinics being developed across the country focusing on young adults, and they really just address these unmet needs or these gaps in care that come up whenever we are dealing with a young patient compared with an older patient. We know that young patients are at a vulnerable stage in their lives. They may have young children, they may be just married, they may be in school, or they may be just starting their careers, which also means that a lot of times, our younger patients don't have the financial resources that, say, an older patient who is already retired may have.

When you think about some of the gaps in care, it is a little bit beyond just the medical piece of this. We want our patients, all patients, but especially our young patients, to receive great multidisciplinary care from all the right doctors and providers simultaneously. We really need to think about things like preserving fertility. What if somebody wants to have kids later in their lives? Well, obviously, cancer treatment can interfere with that. So, what are some of the strategies that we can implement now to make sure that if somebody wants kids in the future, they are able to do that? What about the social work to address the financial toxicity? What about a social peer group? Can we connect our young patients with people who have had similar experiences, those who have already had that lived experience? Can we provide for our patients, patient advocates, and survivors who have lived through some of this, so that there is at least some kind of peer network?

These are just some representative gaps that we know our young patients face. The key here is that we need to communicate well with our patients and provide these resources. And one of the things that really came out in our discussion this morning was the importance of repeating those discussions, because when you get that diagnosis, you are going to remember only half of what you are told.

Coming back to these discussions, making sure that these services are continuously offered to our patients, and surrounding our young patients with the appropriate team is what we want.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

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