Teenage Cancer Trust is a charity that focuses on the needs of teenagers and young adults with cancer, leukaemia, Hodgkin’s and related diseases by providing specialist teenage units in NHS hospitals. The units are dedicated areas for teenage patients, who are involved in their concept and creation. Medical facilities on the units are colourful and vibrant environments, equipped with computers, TVs, game consoles – designed to be places where friends and family feel comfortable to visit.

To date, the charity has built 10 units in London, Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle and Manchester.

The charity anticipates that the concentration of medical expertise within these units can improve chances of recovery by 15%.

Units cost over £2million each to build and Teenage Cancer Trust aims to complete at least 22 units in the UK so that every teenager and young adult with cancer in the UK has access to these facilities.

Contents 1 History 2 Administrative 3 Celebrity involvement 3.1 Arsenal F.C. 4 External links 5 References

[edit] History

Established in 1997, the charity’s work has expanded dramatically. As well as an Education and Awareness team with a vibrant schools programme providing information, education and advice that reaches pupils all over the UK, the charity funds and organises a forum for professionals to ensure information and best practice sharing. It sponsors a teenage conference, Find Your Sense of Tumour, an International Conference on Cancer and the Adolescent and have just appointed the world’s first Professor of Adolescent Cancer Medicine. grew by chance, out of the eagerness of a group of women to organise a fashion show to fund a children's intensive care heart unit at Guy's Hospital, London.

Each day in the UK, 6 teenagers will find out they have cancer. That is over 2,200 new diagnoses each year.^{[citation needed]} In many cases, cancer in teens is not picked up early enough and symptoms are dismissed as growing pains or sports injuries. Because teenagers are undergoing growth spurts, their cancers grow faster than other age groups and they can be at greater risk.

Cancer is the most common cause of non-accidental death in teens and young adults in the UK. By the age of 15 you have a 1 in 600 chance of developing cancer. By the age of 24 you will have had a 1 in 285 chance of developing cancer. In the last 30 years the incidence of cancer in the teenage and young adult group has increased by 50% and for the first time ever, the number of teens with cancer now exceeds the number of children with cancer.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Administrative

The Teenage Cancer Trust was registered as a charity in the United Kingdom on 29 May 1997, and holds registration number 1062559.

Today the organisation operates from offices in west London, with an annual income of around £6½M a year.

Corporate supporters include Credit Suisse, The Excell Group Plc, Club Med & Selfridges.^[1] The trustees of the charity are John Stephen Matlin, Ronnie Harris, Dr Adrian Leon Whiteson OBE, David Roger Anthony John Formosa, Diane Margaret Freedman, Myrna Nita Whiteson MBE, Richard Barry Rosenberg, Susie Foottit & Alan Patten.^[2]

[edit] Celebrity involvement

Roger Daltrey of The Who has been intimately involved with the yearly charity concerts at Royal Albert Hall, which continue this year. www.concertsfortct.com

Some of the many others who have been involved include Ash, Noel Gallagher, Kasabian, Stereophonics, Glenn Tipton, McFly, Ronnie Wood, Chris Martin, Muse, The Fratellis, Noel Fielding, Russell Brand, Paul Weller, Steve Cradock, Duffy.

The most recent additions to this list are Bullet for my Valentine, Florence and the Machine, V V Brown, Antony and the Johnsons, Seth Lakemna, Kate Rusby, Fairport Convention, Fightstar, The Blackout and Mathew Horne and James Corden.

Other celebrities who have supported the charity are Frank Lampard, Holly Willoughby, and Gerald Scarfe.

[edit] Arsenal F.C.

Teenage Cancer Trust was Arsenal F.C.'s 'charity of the season' 2008/09 and Arsenal F.C. have been invoved with the trust for many years. A ninety second television advertisement called 'Do What I Say' was made by advertising agency Brothers and Sisters and featured nine of the Arsenal squad - Manuel Almunia, Cesc Fàbregas, Kolo Touré, William Gallas, Eduardo da Silva, Johan Djourou, Gaël Clichy, Emmanuel Adebayor, Bacary Sagna, and was voiced by comedian and Arsenal fan Matt Lucas.

[edit] External links

• Teenage Cancer Trust, official website
• 2009 Concerts for Teenage Cancer Trust at Royal Albert Hall

[edit] References