Fewer teens than younger kids in cancer trials

By Anthony J. Brown, MD

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Adolescents and young adults with cancer appear to have less access to clinical trials -- and, therefore, to the latest treatments -- than their younger counterparts, according to a new report.

"Research has shown that patients who are enrolled in clinical trials offering the most advanced cancer treatments do better than patients who receive conventional treatment," lead author Dr. Peter H. Shaw, from the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, said in a statement.

He added that there are two main reasons why clinical trial access is more limited for adolescents and young adults than for children. First, adolescents and young adults are often treated by specialists in adult cancers at centers that are not participating in trials geared toward childhood malignancies. Second, at the national level, there are simply far fewer clinical trials for cancers affecting adolescents and young adults compared with those affecting younger patients.

The findings, reported in the Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, are based on an analysis of data for 501 patients younger than 15 years old and 139 between 15 and 22 years old seen at the researchers' center between 2001 and 2006.

Participation in a clinical trial ran at 38 percent among the younger patients but only 27 percent among the adolescents and young adults.

Unavailability of an appropriate clinical trial was the reason for non-enrollment of 57 percent of the patients in the older age group, and for 41 percent of the younger age group.

"We hope (this study) drives home the point that these teen and young adult oncology patients need to be seen at children's hospitals to have access to the most up-to-date treatments and even then, we as pediatric oncologists have to make more studies available to them for better care," Shaw told Reuters Health.

SOURCE: Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, December, 2007.