TEENAGE CANCER TRUST
Teenage Cancer Trust aims to ensure that every young person with cancer and their family receive the best possible care and professional support throughout their cancer journey. We also empower young people through education and advocacy.
About Teenage Cancer Trust
Teenage Cancer Trust is a charity devoted to improving the lives of young people with cancer. The charity believes that teenagers shouldn’t stop being teenagers because they have cancer. Usually placed on a children’s ward or with elderly patients, young people often feel isolated when facing a
cancer diagnosis. The charity build specialist units in NHS hospitals where young people with cancer are treated with others their own age, in an environment suited to their needs.
Teenage Cancer Trust units are designed to be as close as possible to a young person’s normal life, helping them cope with gruelling treatment and long stays in hospital. They also bring teenagers with cancer together so they can support each other.
Young people are involved in the planning of Teenage Cancer Trust units, so you might find pool tables, games, vending machines, computers or friends chatting on webcams. It’s about giving
teenagers the chance to be themselves.
Teenage Cancer Trust also fund Teenage Cancer Trust Nurse Consultants and youth support workers, across the country. Experts in teenage and young adult cancer care, they provide clinical expertise, develop services and research, deliver professional education and training and represent and advocate, nationally and internationally on behalf of Teenage Cancer Trust.
Key facts
• Every day in the UK, six young people (13-24 year olds) are told they have cancer. That’s approximately 2,100 young people a year. This is a rising figure.
• Young people often receive hospital treatment in inappropriate facilities catering for children or the elderly. Up to 16 years, a teenager will be treated in a paediatric ward alongside children. After 16, the same teenager will be treated in an adult ward with elderly patients.
• Teenage Cancer Trust focuses on the needs of young people with cancer between the ages of 13-24 by providing specialist teenage units in NHS hospitals. These units are designed to give the very best chance of a positive outcome. As well as state-of-the-art facilities to keep patients occupied during long stays in hospital, the units provide an environment where they can meet others in a similar situation.
• Teenage Cancer Trust has built 17 units and plans to build a further 16 so that all young people needing hospital treatment for cancer across the UK have access to the dedicated, specialist support we provide.
Teenage cancer facts
• One in 312 males and one in 361 females will get cancer before they are 20.
• Germ cell tumours have developed the most over the past few years which are linked to ovarian and testicular cancer
• Different cancers predominate at different ages: leukaemia, lymphomas and brain tumours in 13 to18 year-olds and lymphomas, carcinomas (soft tissue cancers) and germ cell tumours in 19 to 24 year-olds.
• Nearly three-quarters of UK teenagers and young adults who develop cancer now survive. The greatest increase in survival rates is for leukemia, which has risen by over 20% over the last 20 years. But survival rates for brain tumours, bone cancers and soft tissue cancers have not changed much since the 1980s.
• Young people get some of the most aggressive cancers. But because only 0.5% of all cancers occur in young people, they are often misdiagnosed initially. This decreases their chances of survival and can mean they are excluded from clinical trials.
(Research from The Office for National Statistics 2005. Analysed by Dr. Robert Alston, Professor Jillian Birch and Professor Tim Eden)
About Teenage Cancer Trust
Teenage Cancer Trust is a charity devoted to improving the lives of young people with cancer. The charity believes that teenagers shouldn’t stop being teenagers because they have cancer. Usually placed on a children’s ward or with elderly patients, young people often feel isolated when facing a
cancer diagnosis. The charity build specialist units in NHS hospitals where young people with cancer are treated with others their own age, in an environment suited to their needs.
Teenage Cancer Trust units are designed to be as close as possible to a young person’s normal life, helping them cope with gruelling treatment and long stays in hospital. They also bring teenagers with cancer together so they can support each other.
Young people are involved in the planning of Teenage Cancer Trust units, so you might find pool tables, games, vending machines, computers or friends chatting on webcams. It’s about giving
teenagers the chance to be themselves.
Teenage Cancer Trust also fund Teenage Cancer Trust Nurse Consultants and youth support workers, across the country. Experts in teenage and young adult cancer care, they provide clinical expertise, develop services and research, deliver professional education and training and represent and advocate, nationally and internationally on behalf of Teenage Cancer Trust.
Key facts
• Every day in the UK, six young people (13-24 year olds) are told they have cancer. That’s approximately 2,100 young people a year. This is a rising figure.
• Young people often receive hospital treatment in inappropriate facilities catering for children or the elderly. Up to 16 years, a teenager will be treated in a paediatric ward alongside children. After 16, the same teenager will be treated in an adult ward with elderly patients.
• Teenage Cancer Trust focuses on the needs of young people with cancer between the ages of 13-24 by providing specialist teenage units in NHS hospitals. These units are designed to give the very best chance of a positive outcome. As well as state-of-the-art facilities to keep patients occupied during long stays in hospital, the units provide an environment where they can meet others in a similar situation.
• Teenage Cancer Trust has built 17 units and plans to build a further 16 so that all young people needing hospital treatment for cancer across the UK have access to the dedicated, specialist support we provide.
Teenage cancer facts
• One in 312 males and one in 361 females will get cancer before they are 20.
• Germ cell tumours have developed the most over the past few years which are linked to ovarian and testicular cancer
• Different cancers predominate at different ages: leukaemia, lymphomas and brain tumours in 13 to18 year-olds and lymphomas, carcinomas (soft tissue cancers) and germ cell tumours in 19 to 24 year-olds.
• Nearly three-quarters of UK teenagers and young adults who develop cancer now survive. The greatest increase in survival rates is for leukemia, which has risen by over 20% over the last 20 years. But survival rates for brain tumours, bone cancers and soft tissue cancers have not changed much since the 1980s.
• Young people get some of the most aggressive cancers. But because only 0.5% of all cancers occur in young people, they are often misdiagnosed initially. This decreases their chances of survival and can mean they are excluded from clinical trials.
(Research from The Office for National Statistics 2005. Analysed by Dr. Robert Alston, Professor Jillian Birch and Professor Tim Eden)
