Cancer Signs in Teens Often Overlooked
Adolescents, Young Adults Don't Feel Their Cancer Symptoms Are Taken Seriously, Study Shows
WebMD News Archive
Oct. 9, 2009 -- About three years ago, Jay Wheeler, now 17, started having
serious headaches and becoming increasingly forgetful. Over the next four
months, he was sent to detention 52 times; the British youngster kept
forgetting to ask his mother to sign the slip, earning another detention.
Jay’s teachers ascribed his behavior to that of a difficult teenager, but
his mother knew something was wrong. Five trips to the doctor didn’t help,
though; Jay was misdiagnosed with conditions ranging from stress headaches to
migraines. Meanwhile, Jay started getting pains in his neck and arms that
caused him to stoop.
More than eight months went by before Jay was seen by a pediatrician who
suspected cancer could be causing his symptoms. A CT scan confirmed the
diagnosis. Jay was rushed by ambulance to Great Ormond Street Hospital in
London, where he had emergency surgery for an advanced brain tumor.
The delayed diagnosis led to a longer, more intense course of treatment than
would otherwise have been needed, according to his physicians. Six months of
radiation and 18 months of intensive chemotherapy severely affected Jay’s
short-term memory and impaired his hearing.
Although he is now back in school, Jay tells WebMD that he still gets “quite
tired. And I believe I would have recovered more quickly had my symptoms been
taken seriously from the start,” he says.
Cancer in Teens: Ruled Out on Age Alone
Jay’s experience is not uncommon. In the first study of its kind, British
researchers have found that teen and young adult cancer patients often feel
frustrated that their symptoms are not taken seriously.
The research, composed of interviews with 24 cancer patients aged 16 to 24,
was presented at a meeting of the European Cancer Organization and the European
Society of Medical Oncology in Berlin.
"While symptoms in some young people were promptly recognized by general
practitioners and referred to specialists quickly, other patients recounted
tales of protracted periods of suffering, with rationalization of their own
symptoms or numerous disappointing visits to doctors and hospitals before the
cancer was diagnosed,” says lead researcher Susie Pearce, a health service
researcher for young people with cancer at University College Hospital in
“One consistent thread through these stories is young people’s perception
that they were not being listened to and that cancer was being ruled out on age
alone,” she says.