OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify the clinical and prognostic characteristics of young cancer patients who were admitted to our hospital over the past two years.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: The clinical features of young cancer patients who aged 18-45 years and were diagnosed in our hospital between January 2021 and December 2022, were retrospectively analyzed. The log-rank test was employed to compare the survival rates among different groups. The prognostic factors were assessed by the multivariate Cox regression model.

RESULTS: A total of 620 cancer patients who aged 18-45 years were included. Notably, 260 (41.9%) patients were male and 360 (58.1%) were female. The median age was 38 (range, 18-45) years. The most common cancer types were thyroid cancer (182, 29.4%), non-small cell lung cancer (106, 17.1%), and soft tissue sarcoma (88, 14.2%). The median follow-up time was 18.5 (range, 3.4-29.4) months. The median overall survival was not achieved across different groups. The 2-year survival rate of all patients was 96.7%. Patients with distant metastases had worse survival than those without metastases (2-year survival rate, 84.0% vs. 99.4%, p = 0.000). Furthermore, multivariate analysis revealed that metastasis was an independent adverse prognostic factor for survival (hazard ratio 9.8, p = 0.000). A total of 17 cancer patients died, including nine patients with gastric cancer, three patients with colorectal cancer, three patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, one patient with pancreatic cancer, and one patient with glioma.

CONCLUSIONS: Metastasis was noted as an independent unfavorable prognostic factor for survival. Regular screening and timely diagnosis before metastasis are crucial to the therapy of young cancer patients.