Almost certainly you think that cancer is something that strikes only adults.  You think that it’s a disease that seldom, if ever, takes the life of an adolescent or young adult.

Unfortunately, that is not true.  In fact, statistics are showing some very alarming trends.  For instance, did you know that adolescents and young adults today with cancer are no more likely to survive this disease than they did 30 years ago?   Survival rates have improved for almost every other kind of cancer in every other age group, but not for these young patients.  Did you also know that cancer rates are increasing for adolescents and young adults?   

Doctors and researchers don’t quite yet know why there hasn’t been more progress in treating cancer in young people.   Some argue that it’s because no one expects a young person to get cancer so doctors and patients wait too long before making a diagnosis and beginning treatment.  More argue that some cancers in this age group are probably somehow different and more aggressive.  Most agree, however, that not enough time and money is being spent on trying to understand these cancers and trying to find more effective treatments—and hopefully cures—for the cancers striking adolescents and young adults.

Fortunately, medicine has begun to recognize that the study of cancer in young people has been under funded.  Some efforts have concentrated on meeting the psychological and social needs of young patients with cancers, and the long-term needs of young people who have survived cancer.  But it’s time to do more get to the cause of the problem.  It’s time to understand how and why these cancers may be different.  Time to find ways to make these cancers routinely curable!

One of the missions of the Reid R Sacco Memorial Foundation, and its Reid R Sacco Memorial Cancer Research Fund, is exactly that:  to raise money to support research to find answers and cures for the cancers striking adolescents and young adults.  Its other mission is to make more people aware of these cancers and their trends. 

The Foundation is named after Reid Sacco, a 2003 graduate of Lynnfield High School.  Reid was a top-ranked honor student, a talented musician, and a superb athlete.  Winner of many academic and athletic awards, including the Princeton Plaque and the Boston Globe All-Scholastic Award in swimming, Reid was pivotal in bringing a swim team to Lynnfield High and today still holds records in the breast stroke.  His future looked limitless.  But Reid was diagnosed with sarcoma—a cancer of the muscle—in his senior year, shortly after being accepted to Columbia University to pursue a career in chemical engineering.  He deferred the start of his freshman year to undergo chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and many surgeries.  But he lost his brave and courageous battle with his cancer and died on April 16, 2005.

The Foundation was formed in his memory with the hope of someday being responsible for preventing what happened to Reid from happening to another young person.  Each year the Foundation holds “Reid’s Ride”, a Bike-a-thon which starts in Lynnfield and rides through the north shore towns to Gloucester to raise money for this cause. And to bring awareness to our young adults that we are here for them and working for their futures. Find more information on www.reidsaccofoundation.org.  Or go to www.ReidsRide.org.