Through our support of research and the Long-Term Follow-Up Clinic at the University of Minnesota, the first clinic of it’s kind in the world, physician researchers can learn more about the medical, neurocognitive, and emotional late-effects of childhood cancer treatments and provide health care based on risk factors associated with prior cancer treatment.
Childhood cancer, the leading killer of children by disease, is the penultimate childhood health struggle. Unfortunately, the struggle may not end when the therapy does, and long-term effects of cancer treatment may pose life-long heath risks as significant as the cancer itself. Intensive therapies used to treat cancer—like surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and blood and marrow transplants—not only destroy the cancer cells but may also damage healthy cells in the process. A child undergoing cancer treatment may experience ongoing issues well into adulthood.
To learn more, a group of physicians from 26 of the most respected pediatric cancer institutions in the United States conducted the largest study of survivors of childhood cancer, surveying more than 14,000 survivors and comparing their health to those of their siblings.
The Childhood Cancer Survivor Study—partially funded by Children’s Cancer Research Fund—found that childhood cancer survivors are more likely to develop “late effects” involving not only cardiovascular complications but other issues, as well, such as infertility, hearing and vision loss, stroke, secondary cancers, cognitive disabilities, and mental and emotional difficulties.
Read more on childhood cancer survivorship in the rest of the above article on the Children’s Cancer Research Fund website