New York City-based Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center has created a new center dedicated to better serving the specific needs of young cancer patients.
The Lisa and Scott Stuart Center for Adolescent and Young Adult Cancers aims to address the unique challenges adolescent and young adult cancer patients face by expanding access to clinical trials for this patient group, offering planning and fertility services, and personalized medicine, according to a Sept. 27 news release.
Adolescent and young adult cancer patients fall into a unique group, often getting caught in a gap between adult patients and children. They're underrepresented in clinical trials since they sometimes don't meet the age requirements for either adult or pediatric trials.
"These patients have not benefited as much from recent advances as those who are younger or older than they are," said Scott Stuart, chair of Memorial Sloan Kettering's Boards of Trustees and Governing Trustees. "We must understand why and do better. This is the mission of the new Lisa and Scott Stuart Center for Adolescent and Young Adult Cancers."
The center was made possible through a donation from Mr. Stuart and his wife Lisa, whose teenage daughter underwent treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma at Memorial Sloan Kettering.
William Tap, MD, chief of Memorial Sloan Kettering's sarcoma medical oncology service, and Julia Glade Bender, MD, vice chair for pediatric clinical research at the cancer center, will lead the new Stuart Center.