Source: Jeffrey Norris, UCSF Today
July 6, 2007

Helping Young Survivors Manage Risks from Treatment

In the 1960s, the population of childhood cancer survivors might have rivaled that of Death Valley -- a diagnosis was nearly a death sentence.

Today, an estimated 270,000 people are long-term survivors of childhood cancer. That's a number larger than the population of Bakersfield, Riverside or Stockton, California. More than 70 percent of children diagnosed with cancer now are being cured. Better treatment is largely responsible.

But there's a downside to the lifesaving treatment. Researchers and clinicians now know that chemotherapy and radiation treatments that save lives increase risks for later diseases unrelated to the initial cancer.

While life-threatening late consequences of treatment are by no means the norm, survivors of childhood cancer may nonetheless face three times the average risk for a chronic health condition, and eight times the average risk for a severe or life-threatening disease.

Robert Goldsby, a pediatric oncologist at UCSF, notes that many childhood cancer patients and their parents may be uninformed about these long-term risks.

Goldsby participated in a Children's Oncology Group (COG) task force that drafted long-term follow-up guidelines for childhood cancer survivors. COG is a cooperative group of clinical researchers supported by the National Institutes of Health.

>> continuation