- Teenagers are growing so fast because of better diets
and a higher standard of living that their risk of cancer may be increasing,
specialists said yesterday. Among young people aged 13 to 24, cancer has
increased by more than a quarter in 20 years and by almost half in the
past three decades.
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- The disease is now the biggest natural cause of death
in the age group and overall, second only to accidents. Some cancers, such
as melanoma, have doubled in 20 years and are linked to changing lifestyles,
such as the rise in holidays in the sun. But for other common cancers among
teenagers, such as leukaemia and testicular cancer, the causes are unclear.
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- Overall, the incidence of teenage cancer rose at 1.2
per cent a year between 1979 and 2000 and now accounts for 2,000 new cases
a year. Speaking at the third international conference on teenage cancer
in London yesterday, Professor Archie Bleyer, director of community oncology
at the University of Texas, said increases in the height and weight of
young people over the past half century were likely to be a factor behind
the rise. Growth was caused by cell division and cancer occurred when the
process of cell division suffered a breakdown and went out of control,
he said.
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- "This increasing growth rate, with an increasing
number of cell divisions, means there are more chances for cancer to develop.
It is the trade-off for a rising standard of living," he said.
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- Studies had shown that the size of a baby at birth was
linked to its chances of getting cancer in childhood. "The faster
the baby grows in the womb and the bigger it is at birth the more likely
it is to develop cancer in early life. If it continues to grow rapidly
it may be more prone to cancer later on," Professor Bleyer said. Charles
Stiller of the childhood cancer research group at the University of Oxford,
said bone cancer was the only cancer which peaked in the teenage years.
"Although teenage cancer follows a distinctive pattern, no other cancer
is distinctive of that group," he said. The hypothesis that increasing
growth rates among young people was linked to the rise in cancer had yet
to be proved, Dr Stiller said.
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- As young people had not lived long enough to suffer prolonged
exposure to environmental agents, the likeliest cause of their cancer was
a genetic susceptibility, he said.
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- Myrna Whiteson, chairman of the Teenage Cancer Trust,
said the needs of young cancer sufferers were being ignored and survival
rates had barely increased in 25 years. "It's a lottery where they
are treated and by whom. We consider our teenagers have been failed by
the Government," she said.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=497005
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