Chronic pediatric diseases into adulthood and the challenge of adolescence.

One of the priorities of public health is to improve the equity of access to a continuous interdisciplinary medical and social survey of patients with chronic complex conditions, and, notably, the switch from pediatric to adult-oriented healthcare, including the specific issues of adolescence. In spite of the many barriers related to the patients, their family, pediatricians, and even adult health providers, the concept of a planned, dynamic, multidisciplinary transition program has to be designed around the adolescent with the aim of reinforcing his autonomy, coordinating medical care, and addressing his educational/professional and psychosocial needs. The primary care physician is the pivot of adult heathcare, and should have a close relationship with the private or hospital referent specialist and paramedical structures.

A very rare cancer in Down syndrome: medulloblastoma. Epidemiological data from 13 countries.

Persons with Down syndrome (DS) uniquely have an increased frequency of leukemias but a decreased total frequency of solid tumors. The distribution and frequency of specific types of brain tumors have never been studied in DS. We evaluated the frequency of primary neural cell embryonal tumors and gliomas in a large international data set.

Pathways of care for adolescent patients with cancer in France from 2006 to 2007.

Background: In France, as in other countries, there is a need for a population-based view of access to care and modalities of treatment for adolescents with cancer.

Procedure: Using a population-based registration, we report pathways of care for 15-19-year-old patients, diagnosed with cancer in 2006 and 2007, living in six French regions, accounting for 41% of the French population.

Results: The median times (inter-quartile range) for diagnosis and treatment of the 594 included adolescents were 8 weeks (3-17) and 3 days (0-16), respectively.