AYAO: Looking Back at 2013 and Ahead to 2014 and One of the Next Developments in the Field of AYAO—SAYAO

As this latest issue of the Journal of Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology completes this year's volume and we look to the year ahead, it gives me cause to be grateful to all the authors who submitted their manuscripts to JAYAO, to the reviewers who selflessly reviewed those manuscripts, to our editorial board for their reviews and assistance finding the right reviewers, and to all of our readers who collectively make up the adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancer healthcare professional—a huge thank you. As I evaluated the list of those who reviewed articles for JAYAO in 2013, I was struck by the number of national and international expert reviewers we called upon to make these issues a reality—a wonderful reality that we have created a truly international collaborative effort that has provided an academic home for scholarly focus on AYA cancer issues.

JAYAO's continued growth—as evidenced by the ever increasing number, quality, and variety of manuscripts that are being submitted by an increased variety of healthcare professionals and disciplines—should make all of us proud that the field of AYAO continues to be become more widely accepted and relevant to oncology as a whole.

In this final issue of 2013, we complete our five-part Special Article series, International Perspectives on AYAO, starting with an article from Lorna Fern about the unique United Kingdom experience: “National Cancer Research Institute Teenage and Young Adult Clinical Studies Group: The United Kingdom Approach to Research.” The United Kingdom gives a perspective of what a country can do when faced with a challenge that not enough AYA cancer patients were eligible for or enrolled in clinical trials. The remarkable success of the measures carried out with the assistance of the Teenage Cancer Trust is an example that everyone can follow as we continue to emphasize the ongoing need to create AYA-specific trials while including them in other cancer trials with the academic goal of improving cancer outcomes. In the final article of the International Perspectives on AYAO series, Rebecca Johnson presents the experience of “AYA in the USA,” which highlights successes and continued opportunities. As with all four of the non-Canadian articles in the series, each of these articles are accompanied by a commentary from International Perspectives on AYAO Series Editor Ronald Barr.

On another exciting note for the AYAO world, JAYAO's sister organization, the Society for Adolescent and Young Adult Oncology (SAYAO), held its first annual meeting in Irvine, California, at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. The Society assembled a world-class faculty for its one-and-a-half day inaugural conference. The central focus of the conference was the psychosocial issues related to having cancer as an AYA and the impacts of a cancer diagnosis. Brad Zebrack, a noted psychosocial AYAO investigator and SAYAO board member, started off the conference with a comprehensive review of the psychological and social issues facing the AYA cancer patient, and discussed the theoretical constructs used in such research. This was followed by an excellent presentation from Laxmi Kondapalli, a leading oncofertility researcher, on the core concept of fertility preservation and its universal application to all AYA cancer types.

The disease-specific elements highlighted in the conference centered on melanoma, cervical cancer, breast cancer, and acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). The leukemia component was chosen for a more in-depth session on the second day, as it represents what most experts believe to be the key disease that has been extensively used to highlight AYAO issues. However, the conference chose to focus not just on the delivery of care issues, but also on the amazing and exciting new science and knowledge advancements that the field of AYA leukemia is experiencing. Cheryl Willman, director of the University of New Mexico's cancer center and a renowned leukemia researcher, presented “The Genomic Analysis of ALL in Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults: Discovery, Translation, and Therapeutic intervention.” The day ended with a roundtable of distinguished leukemia experts discussing the controversial areas related to the delivery of care for the leukemic patient, and calling for the continued collection of much needed biological specimens to allow ongoing research both nationally and internationally. The work of JAYAO and the Society are complementary, and we are very proud that the Society's first annual meeting was held and look forward to more to come in the coming year. In 2014, the Society will make all of the recorded conference presentations available online for free, with the goal of expanding the reach of these very important discussions that were generated by the outstanding conference.

I look forward to 2014 with excitement as the AYA cancer world continues to gain the momentum and recognition that leads to our ultimate goal—improving care for our AYA cancer patients and survivors by utilizing the best of science for both the biobehavioral/psychosocial and biological aspects of cancer and its resulting effects on these AYAs.