Cancer Treatments Got Gentler, Yet Kids’ Survival Improved

Cancer Treatments Got Gentler, Yet Kids’ Survival Improved
Landon Kimich, 2, sleeps as he receives a chemotherapy treatment for neuroblastoma at Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center on May 22, 2015. AP Photo/Pat Sullivan
The Associated Press
Updated:
CHICAGO—The move to make cancer treatments gentler for children has paid a double dividend: More kids are surviving than ever before, and without the long-term complications that doomed many of their peers a generation ago, new research shows.

Radiation and chemotherapy have saved countless children from leukemia and other types of cancer, but some of these treatments can damage the heart or other organs, problems that prove fatal years later.