Long-Term Survivors of Leukemia and Late Effects: A Report from the Registry of Long-Term Survivors of Children’s Cancer of Japan

Abstract

About one third of childhood leukemia patients have some abnormalities, but the majority of abnormalities are seen in relapse cases. As far as individual patients are concerned, some patients, even nonrelapsed ones, have apparent abnormalities. However, as a population, significant abnormalities are not apparent. A large proportion of the patients in this study were treated before current treatment procedures came into widespread use, and this treatment was, therefore, relatively mild. Since it is anticipated that treatment will become more vigorous, and, the proportion of long-term survivors will rapidly increase, these results will be subject to change in the future.