Childhood cancer survivors have fewer long-term side effects: Study

Better treatment strategies for pediatric cancers are helping survivors live longer, with fewer serious health problems related to their treatment, U.S. researchers have said.

The finding, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, is based on analysis of data from 23,600 participants in the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study.

Overall, severe health conditions arising within 15 years of childhood cancer diagnosis fell to 8.8 per cent of survivors in the 1990s, from 12.7 per cent in the 1970s, the study found. The findings show that childhood cancer survivors who were given more modern treatment approaches, such as reduced exposure to radiation and lower doses of chemotherapy, were faring better, said Todd Gibson of St Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, who led the study. “Not only are more children being cured, but they also have lower risk for developing serious health problems due to cancer treatments later in life,” he said.

The researchers focused on severe, disabling, life-threatening or fatal health problems that occurred within 15 years of being diagnosed with a pediatric cancer between 1970 and 1999. The biggest declines in health problems related to treatment occurred in survivors of Wilms’ tumor, a rare kidney cancer. In this group, serious complications fell to 5 per cent of survivors in the 1990s, from a high of 13 per cent in the 1970s.

In survivors of childhood Hodgkin lymphoma, latent complication rates fell to 11 percent, from 18 per cent in the 1970s. Improvements were also seen for astrocytoma, the second most common childhood cancer, and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, the most common childhood cancer.