Young Cancer Patients Need a Different Kind of Help: Lisa Jarvis

The rate of cancer deaths in the US has steadily declined for several decades. But there’s a caveat: We’ve recently seen a small but worrisome increase in the rate of certain cancers — particularly colon cancers — among adults under 50. These patients have a set of needs that the health care system, accustomed to an older patient population, is not always meeting.

That starts with a timely diagnosis — many aren’t discovering they have cancer until it has already advanced to the later stages. But younger people also require a different type of help during treatment and into survivorship.

The ...