title: Sarcomas in adolescents and young adults.
abstract: Adolescents and young adults, caught between the traditionally binary medical systems for children and adults, may be treated variably, depending on which side of the dichotomy they find themselves. As a result, their unique needs may go unmet because they occupy the fringes of the more typical child and adult patient populations. Soft tissue sarcomas in adolescents and young adults are a case in point, spanning the gap between the two fields but focusing on neither. Increasing age seems to be a poor prognosticator for soft tissue sarcomas, but is probably only a marker for other biological variables, patient characteristics, and treatment differences. This article discusses the issues unique to the management of soft tissue sarcomas in this population, pointing out what age-specific data are known and what areas are ripe for collaborative research between medical and pediatric oncologists.
authors.affiliation: Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology Program, Center for Sarcoma and Bone Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, 44 Binney Street, Boston, MA 02115, USA. Karen_Albritton@dfci.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Karen H
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Albritton
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D006801:Humans; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012509:Sarcoma / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*; D012983:Soft Tissue Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000628:therapy*