What You Need To Know
Hackensack University Medical Center is partnering with Teen Cancer America. The partnership will expand the hospital’s Adolescent and Young Adult (AYA) program and connect more young cancer patients with vital services. AYA programs treat people between the ages of 15 and 39 who have received a cancer diagnosis, and are designed to address the survival gap present among patients in this age group, particularly as recent years have seen significantly larger survival gains among cancer patients as a whole.
A generous donation from Teen Cancer America and First Citizens Bank will help Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital and the John Theurer Cancer Center hire two additional full-time team members for its AYA program; an AYA program coordinator and an AYA social worker, which will help to bridge the gap in care for these patients.
“We’re very happy to bring additional support to this group of patients who have unique needs when they develop cancer,” said Burton Appel, M.D., associate director of the Children’s Cancer Institute at Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital. Dr. Appel added that philanthropy has played a large role in creating and sustaining the AYA program at the Children’s Hospital and John Theurer Cancer Center. He hopes that these additional resources will help lead to more patients enrolling in clinical trials to help create medical breakthroughs - a key priority of the AYA program.Adolescents and young adults face unique challenges when coping with a cancer diagnosis. It can be difficult for teens and young adults with cancer to manage the disease’s emotional and social challenges, including those associated with being a teen, relationships, sexuality, fertility, body image, missing school, worries about long-term health, starting careers or having families.
With the largest pediatric and adult cancer programs in New Jersey, the AYA program at Hackensack University Medical Center links adolescent and young adult patients and their families to support and ancillary services, while helping to coordinate treatment and supportive care and improve enrollment into clinical trials. In addition, this program helps to strengthen communication between the medical and pediatric oncology teams to provide comprehensive care to adolescents and young adults, regardless of their treatment site.
The gift from Teen Cancer America and First Citizens Bank, allocated over three years, totals $379,819. This donation is the latest example of community-based philanthropy between Teen Cancer America and First Citizens Bank; their coordination dates back to 2015 and has helped create or expand AYA programs with several hospital partners nationwide.
The gift from Teen Cancer America will contribute to a $10 million goal set in celebration of the tenth anniversary of Tackle Kids Cancer (TKC), which raises crucial funds for pediatric cancer research and patient care programs. With Eli Manning as the captain of TKC since its inception in 2015, more than $30 million has been raised to help children and families facing a pediatric cancer diagnosis.