Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer occupy a distinct clinical and developmental space, yet their psychosocial needs remain poorly addressed within oncology systems globally, and particularly in India, where dedicated AYA care pathways and psychosocial research are almost non-existent.

This narrative review synthesises interdisciplinary literature across epidemiology, psychosocial oncology, youth development, data science, and AI ethics to examine how computational tools could be ethically integrated to strengthen AYA cancer care. Peer-reviewed articles (n=35) were identified through searches across PubMed, Google Scholar, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, BMJ, PNAS, and Wiley Online Library. Inclusion criteria required relevance to AYA populations (ages 13-39), psychosocial or developmental outcomes, or data science/AI approaches applicable to oncology or youth mental health; studies focused exclusively on younger children and youth (<10 years) or older adults (>40 years), and non-peer-reviewed sources, were excluded. Qualitative, quantitative, conceptual, and systems science methodologies were synthesised thematically.

This review finds that AYAs experience consistent psychosocial vulnerabilities (emotional distress, disrupted identity and autonomy, social isolation, educational disruption, and survivorship burdens) that remain unevenly recognised and under-addressed in clinical practice. Existing psychosocial interventions are resource-intensive, inconsistent, and rarely scaled. Critically, AI tools demonstrate concrete potential to address these gaps: natural language processing (NLP) applied to clinical notes and digital communications can enable early distress detection; machine learning models can identify non-adherence risk; AI-enabled decision-support can prompt early fertility counselling and personalised survivorship planning; and data collaboratives linking hospitals, registries, and schools can improve equity and care coordination. Yet these innovations remain entirely absent from psychosocial AYA oncology.

This review proposes an ecological, human-centred model integrating biomedical prediction, psychosocial support, and system-level equity across micro, meso, and macro levels of care. Future interdisciplinary work must prioritise contextual relevance, meaningful youth participation and also, ethical governance, to ensure AYA psychosocial needs are being catered to.