Tackling the complications of childhood cancer treatment
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While the diagnosis of any child or teenager with cancer is extremely traumatic, there have been huge advances in treatment; the five-year survival rate is now 80 percent in developed countries. With more young people surviving the disease, it has become increasingly important to understand the impacts treatment could have in later life. A team of European researchers is working with young survivors to establish the facts.
Approximately 1 in 750 young adults is now a childhood cancer survivor. Of these, it is estimated that 300,000 to 500,000 live in Europe. Using data from European childhood cancer registries, researchers are following around 80,000 survivors of childhood and adolescent cancer, making this the largest study of its kind to date.
The project is known as PanCareSurFup ('PanCare Childhood and Adolescent Cancer Survivor Care and Follow-Up Studies') and has received almost EUR 6 million in EU funding.