Cancer Research Lab

Adolescents and young adults with cancer appear to have less access to clinical trials and, therefore, the latest treatments, than their younger counterparts, according to a report in the December issue of the Journal of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology.

“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 adult oncologists at centers that are not participating in trials geared toward pediatric malignancies. Second, at the national level, there are simply far fewer clinical trials of cancers affecting adolescents and young adults compared with those affecting younger patients.

The findings are based on analysis of data for all patients who were diagnosed with a new malignancy at the researchers’ center between July 2001 and June 2006. The study group included 501 patients younger than 15 years old and 139 between 15 and 22 years old.

Thirty-six percent of the subjects participated in a clinical trial, which included 38% of the younger patients and 27% of the adolescents and young adults (p = 0.03). Trial unavailability accounted for non-enrollment of 57% and 41% of patients in the older and younger age groups, respectively (p = 0.04).

“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,” Dr. Shaw said.

He added that future research needs to “address which diseases are under-represented in the clinical trial realm.”