The number of adults who have survived childhood cancer in the United States has increased—but they face chronic health problems related to their treatment.
A new study, the first to estimate the prevalence of treatment-related chronic disease among survivors of childhood cancer at a national level, shows that as of 2011 there were nearly 400,000 childhood cancer survivors in the United States, up 60,000 from 2005.“We’ve been able to increase the number of survivors of pediatric cancer, but simply curing their disease isn’t enough,” said lead author Siobhan Phillips, assistant professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
