Question: whats the differnece bettween teenage cancer and normall cancer?

Jessica Chu answered on 16 Jun 2011:

Good question!

Ok so first of all cancer is a group of diseases where the cell growth is out of control- it will just keep growing bigger and bigger whether it is a teenage cancer or ‘normal’ cancer! I think the difference is in what causes them to develop!

There are many causes for cancer such as smoking, alcohol, unbalanced diet, exposure to radiation e.g. being in the sun for a long time without sun cream or it can be work-related such as not wearing protective clothing when working with machines or chemicals that gives out radiation! In these cases cancer cells normally take 20 to 40 years to develop so cancer should be quite rare in teenagers and young children. And teenage cancer is quite rare compare to the number of ‘normal’ cancer cases.

However, reasons for why young people and children develop cancer at a young age can be because during the puberty years – the body will go through a lot of changes so there are lots of different hormones going around (giving different growth signals to the cells).

Hormones are one of the reasons for cancer development. So during puberty – guys and girls tend to grow taller very quickly. So Ewing’s sarcoma, Osteosarcoma (both are a type of bone cancer) is very common in teens especially the ones that are taller than average.
Other common types include leukemia (high levels of abnormal white blood cells), brain tumours and cancer of the lymphatic system. There are still lots of research going on to find out more so we can make more effective treatment for these horrible cancers!

Young people becoming sexually active and can pass on the HPV (human papilloma virus) that can either cause genital warts or quite commonly it can have more severe effects such as cancers of the cervix, vulva, vagina, and anus in women or cancers of the anus and penis in men. So that’s why there is so much adverts talking about wearing protection or going to get STD (sexually transmitted disease) checks at your doctors because it is pretty serious stuff! If found early – there are treatments available!!

Genes we get from our parents can also be a cause – if we already have genes (DNA codes) that cause mutation then we only need a few more triggers for the cancer to develop. An example of this is the retinoblastoma gene that is passed on from parents to their children so around the age of 2- the young child will develop eye cancer.

I hope this helps a bit- lack of research makes it hard to know the reasons why they develop! The examples I have given- people honestly don’t really know why it happens but using what we know already about hormones etc. these are very likely to be the reasons!
Let me know if there’s anymore of your interesting questions!!