Teenage Cancer Trust

From WikiColdplay

Teenage Cancer Trust is a charity that focuses on the needs of teenagers and young adults with cancer, leukaemia, Hodgkin’s and related diseases by providing specialist teenage units in NHS hospitals. The units are dedicated areas for teenage patients, who are involved in their concept and creation. Medical facilities on the units are colourful and vibrant environments, equipped with computers, TVs, game consoles – designed to be places where friends and family feel comfortable to visit.

To date, TCT has built 8 units in London (2 sites), Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle and Manchester and is in discussion with an additional 15 trusts.

TCT anticipates that the concentration of medical expertise within these units can improve chances of recovery by 15%.

Units cost over £1 million each to build and TCT aims to complete at least 20 units in the UK so that every teenager and young adult with cancer in the UK has access to these facilities.

History

Since TCT was established, the charity’s work has expanded dramatically. As well as an Education and Awareness team with a vibrant schools programme providing information, education and advice that reaches pupils all over the UK, the charity funds and organises a forum for professionals to ensure information and best practice sharing. It sponsors a teenage conference, Find Your Sense of Tumour, an International Conference on Cancer and the Adolescent and have just appointed the world’s first Professor of Adolescent Cancer Medicine. grew by chance, out of the eagerness of a group of women to organise a fashion show to fund a children's intensive care heart unit at Guy's Hospital, London.

Each day in the UK, 6 teenagers will find out they have cancer. That is over 2,200 new diagnoses each year (citation needed). In many cases, cancer in teens is not picked up early enough and symptoms are dismissed as growing pains or sports injuries. Because teenagers are undergoing growth spurts, their cancers grow faster than other age groups and they can be at greater risk.

Cancer is the most common cause of non-accidental death in teens and young adults in the UK. By the age of 15 you have a 1 in 600 chance of developing cancer. By the age of 24 you will have had a 1 in 285 chance of developing cancer. In the last 30 years the incidence of cancer in the teenage and young adult group has increased by 50% and for the first time ever, the number of teens with cancer now exceeds the number of children with cancer (citation needed).

Celebrity involvement

Roger Daltrey of The Who has been intimately involved with the yearly charity concerts, which continue this year.[1]. Some of the many others who have been involved include Noel Gallagher, Ronnie Wood [2], Chris Martin and Frank Lampard.

External links

• Official site
• 2007 Albert Hall charity concert
• Article from justgiving.com
• Patient.co.uk entry
• Review of Coldplay performance at TCT, 2003pt:Teenage Cancer Trust