Abstract
Survival of patients aged 15–24 years, diagnosed with cancer during the period of
1990–1994, is described within Europe. Data on 15 101 patients, extracted from the
files of the 56 adult cancer registries included in the EUROCARE-3 database, representing
20 European countries, were analysed and compared. Five-year survival for ‘all cancers
combined’ was 75% in males (ranging from 59% in Estonia to 89% in Iceland), and 78%
in females (ranging from 59% in Estonia to 89% in Norway). The Northern European countries
(except Denmark) and Austria had the highest survival figures, while survival in the
Eastern European countries was lower than the European average. Denmark, UK, and the
pool of the central European countries, had intermediate survival figures. Haemopoietic
tumours were the most common malignancies: 5-year survival was high for Hodgkin's
disease (89%), intermediate for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (68%) and lower for acute lymphoblastic
leukaemia (ALL) (47%) and acute myeloblastic leukaemia (AML) (39%). Five-year survival
for gonadal germ cell cancers, the second most common malignancy in young adults,
was 90%. Five-year survival for the other cancers under consideration was as follows:
89% for skin melanoma, 66% for all Central Nervous System (CNS) tumours, 57% for bone
tumours, 58% for osteosarcoma, 42% for Ewing's sarcoma, 57% for soft-tissue sarcomas,
99% for thyroid carcinoma, 82% for uterine cervical carcinoma, and 83% for ovarian
carcinoma. For more ‘adult-specific tumours’, 5-year survival was good for colon (77%)
and lung (60%) cancers, and less favourable, compared with adults, for breast cancer
(68%). Adolescents (15–19 years) had significantly worse survival than young adults
(20–24 years) for all malignancies combined. Survival for Hodgkin's lymphoma, CNS
tumours, melanoma and colon cancer showed marked regional variability. Since many
of the tumours occurring in young adults are curable, these results should encourage,
without delay, efforts to identify obstacles to improving outcome and reducing geographical
inequalities in survival for this group of patients.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Accepted:
September 1,
2003
Received in revised form:
August 26,
2003
Received:
July 17,
2003
Identification
Copyright
© 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
