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The number of childhood cancer survivors who grow into adulthood is increasing dramatically. To evaluate overall health outcomes in this population, Dutch researchers retrospectively examined data on 1362 patients who had survived childhood cancer for at least 5 years and for whom clinical, radiologic, and pathologic information was available. After a median 17 years of follow-up, the survivors had a median age of 24.
Most patients had undergone radiotherapy at the head, neck, thorax, or abdomen. The overall excess risk for death (excluding death from the primary cancer) was fivefold. Roughly one third had a severe, life-threatening, or disabling disorder, and about 25% had five or more disorders, including second tumors, infertility, and or…