Lung cancer rates in younger adults are rising. Dana-Farber's Narjust Florez, MD discusses research showing that young patients with lung cancer face ample financial toxicity and issues impacting physical, emotional, and functional well-being.
Lung cancer in young adults continues to increase. Since 2018, more younger women are getting lung cancer than men and this is irregardless of tobacco use. So the young lung cancer study evaluates the psycho social needs of patients that are less than 50. This is the first study of his nature as this population is often forgotten because lung cancer has a median age of diagnosis at 67. But around 20% of patients are less than 50. We notice very surprising results. First, around 36% of patients were diagnosed with a mental health disorder. After lung cancer, these patients reported high rates of anxiety and depression. Furthermore, they report significant side effects including fatigue, including other functional side effects like neuropathy as well as decrease in sexual function. Something that was also very revealing in the study was the financial burden of the financial toxicity that this population experience. I call young patients with lung cancer, the sandwich generation because they're often the caregiver to their Children and they're also the caregiver to their parents. So who cares for the caregiver when the caregiver gets sick. So financial toxicity was very high. 40% of patients reported having not too little money to pay for treatment. Over 40% of them were very concerned about losing their employment because they will lose their insurance. Over 30% of them reported that all out of pocket expenses were significantly higher than expected and nearly half reported that they don't know if they're gonna be able to complete treatments due to the lack of financial resources. So the summary for the preliminary analysis of the young lung psychosocial needs assessment is that this population has unique needs, who cares for the caregiver when the caregiver gets sick. High mental health disorders include anxiety and depression, fear of death or early mortality and a high financial burden. We will continue to recruit patients in the cohort and we hope to present a updated result at upcoming oncology conference.
