Abstract
Although children and adolescents are less prone to cancer, malignancy is one of their main causes of death. The accurate diagnosis of cancer in young people generally takes longer than the aged population.
We report two 17-year-old males who had orthopedic disorders in whom the diagnosis of malignant lymphoma was delayed. Our cases took a longer time to reach a correct diagnosis than the median time indicated in previous studies. We speculated that the possible reasons why they needed a longer time to be diagnosed may be due to the notion that most young adults tend to be fairly healthy, and they might be more reluctant to disclose their symptoms to their parents. They might not go to the doctor unless they feel they really need to go.
We would like to emphasize that malignancies should always be considered in differential diagnoses and doctors should pay attention to adolescents’ way of thinking and their attitude which are unique to this age group.
