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Young Survivors of Childhood Cancer

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Due to recent advances in new and successful treatments the consequences of receiving a diagnosis of cancer in childhood have dramatically changed. Children and adolescents with cancer, who may have had a limited life expectancy a few decades ago, are now often surviving into adulthood. The overall five-year survival was over 72% for all pediatric malignancies in 19 European countries in the period 1978−1997 [1]. In the UK, the overall survival was 75% between 1992 and 1996 [2] with the highest survival for survivors of Hodgkin’s disease (95%) and retinoblastoma (95%) and the lowest for primitive neuroectodermal tumors (50%) and neuroblastoma (55%). The overall survival in the US was 80% in the period 1996−2003 compared to 62% in 1975–1977 [3]. The highest survival rates in the US were found for survivors of Hodgkin’s disease (95%) and Wilm’s tumor (92%), while the lowest survival rate of 50% was found for survivors of acute myeloid leukemia [3].

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  1. Coronel Institute of Occupational Health, AMC/Academic Medical Centre, Meibergdreef 9/K0-105, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Angela de Boer

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de Boer, A., Verbeek, J., van Dijk, F. (2009). Young Survivors of Childhood Cancer. In: Work and Cancer Survivors. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-72041-8_8

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