Young Adult Cancer Survivors More Likely to Be Hospitalized

Study finds rate is twice as high for some cancers

By Robert Preidt

Monday, July 13, 2015

MONDAY, July 13, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Young adult cancer survivors are more likely to be hospitalized than people who never had cancer, a new study finds.

Researchers analyzed data from more than 20,000 people in Ontario, Canada, who had their first cancer diagnosis between ages 20 and 44 and had lived at least five years cancer-free. They were compared with a control group of more than 100,000 young adults never diagnosed with cancer.

Up to 20 years after being declared cancer-free, the overall hospitalization rate for cancer survivors was 1.5 times higher than for people in the control group, the researchers found.

The rate of hospitalization was twice as high for survivors of gastrointestinal cancer, leukemia, bladder or kidney cancer, colorectal cancer, brain cancer and lymphoma, the study revealed.

The study was published July 13 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

"Even when young adults survive cancer, the cancer still has an impact on their lives and their long-term health," study author Dr. Nancy Baxter, a colorectal surgeon at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, said in a hospital news release.

"And this age group still has a lot of life to live," she added.

Previous studies have found that as many as two-thirds of childhood cancer survivors have long-term complications from surgery, chemotherapy or radiation treatment.

SOURCE: St. Michael's Hospital, news release, July 13, 2015

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