Cancers in adolescents and young adults aged 15-39 years differ from those in children and older people. Only 3.5 percent of this age group develops cancer every year, mainly testicular cancer and Hodgkin lymphoma. There are about 17,000 new cases every year. In contrast, 500,000 people are newly diagnosed with cancer each year throughout Germany. Adolescents and young adults, also abbreviated as AYA (adolescents and young adults), have completely different therapy and care requirements, which must be age-appropriate, oncologists and psychologists recently explained at the German Cancer Congress held in Berlin. Survivorship programmes are therefore at the forefront of their treatment as an age-appropriate care concept. In addition, observations with long-term survivors show that people in this AYA group often have more severe physical and, above all, psychological impairments, such as fatigue (chronic exhaustion), anxiety disorders and depression, as well as adaptation problems, which also affects career choice and counselling, while older people have to contend with completely different problems and impairments. For them, other therapies and therapy goals have priority. The risk of illness also increases with increasing age. People in this age group need geriatric programmes, but also information material tailored to them, conversations that are repeated and the relationship to relatives who are intensively involved. Older people also benefit from cross-sectoral cooperation between family doctors and resident oncologists and joint decision-making processes, as well as from programmes that intervene specifically to maintain physical functions and activity.
