A number of factors appear to influence whether young people receive care at a specialized cancer center, according to a retrospective, population-based analysis involving more than 127,000 individuals.

Participants were California-based adolescent and young adult oncology patients admitted to the hospital over a 24-year period ending in 2014. Investigators looked at how social and clinical factors contributed to always receiving care from a specialized center. Among the results:

• 43% of patients always received care at a specialized center in 2014, compared with 27% in 1991.
• Patients were half as likely to always receive such care if they were uninsured.
• Those with public insurance and Hispanics were 36% and 12% less likely, respectively.
• Patients who lived >5 miles from a specialized center, or who had a diagnosis other than leukemia and central nervous system tumors, were also less apt to always receive such care.