Cancer

Youth and cancer

Cancer is an important topic in John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. According to the World Health Organization, every year, approximately 400.000 children and teens worldwide are diagnosed with cancer before the age of 19, although developments in medicine have significantly improved the chances of survival.

The causes of cancer in children and adolescents are difficult to determine and often impossible to detect, since children are not exposed to cigarette smoke or other harmful factors over many years, for example, as adults are. Therefore, the typical cancers of children and adolescents also differ from those of adults.

The most common form of cancer in adolescents is leukemia, which means cancer of the blood; the second most common form are tumors of the central nervous s...