Pediatric cancer risks loom large

New and advanced treatments to cure cancer have effectively raised the survival rate among pediatric cancer patients, but they may face life-threatening health problems decades later, reveals a study.

Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, conducted by the researchers at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, affirms 40 percent patients cured for cancer during young age face serious health problem about three decades after their diagnosis.

Exposure to radiations and toxic drugs used during chemotherapy damages the developing organ system of the children. Thus, childhood cancer survivors become easy target for multiple organ dysfunctioning during their adulthood.

Every cell in our body is tightly regulated with respect to growth, interaction with other cells, and its life span. Cancer occurs when a type of cell loses this normal control mechanism and grows in a way that the body can no longer regulate it. Different kinds of cancer have different signs, symptoms, treatments, and outcomes, depending on the type of cell involved and the degree of uncontrolled cell growth.

Data collected from 26 medical centers across U.S. looked into medical records of 10,397 adults cured for cancer as young ones along with 3,034 cancer-free counterparts. The study aimed to analyze the long term implications of the disease. All the cancer survivors were diagnosed between 1970 and 1986.

The study disclosed the cancer survivors to be three times more prone to suffer chronic health conditions later in life. Making problems worse, cancer survivors are eight times more likely to suffer a severe or life-threatening condition like second cancers, heart strokes, kidney disease, musculoskeletal problems, osteoporosis and sterility.

While leukemia, lymphoma, and brain cancer are the common types of pediatric cancer, the survivors of bone tumors, nerve and brain cancer, and Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the immune system, are likely to face the highest risk.

"This is the dark side to being cured of cancer as a young person," said Philip Rosoff of the Duke University School of Medicine.