Childhood cancer survivors in the United States continue to face health-related challenges as they grow older, according to a new study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Researchers also found that people who surpassed childhood cancer feel older than their years.
The Marshalltown reports that researchers from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center studied the lifestyle of 7,105 childhood cancer survivors aged 18 to 49 years old. They also conducted an analysis on a previous research by the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey (MEPS) that involved 12,803 childhood cancer survivors.
Childhood Cancer Survivors Suffer Health-Related Problems & Accelerated Aging
The researchers found that 80 percent of the childhood cancer survivors had chronic illnesses. They also discovered that this large percentage of childhood cancer survivors had chronic diseases that are hardly identical to the chronic illnesses of the general population.
MEPS's previous research found that childhood cancer survivors have more chances of developing chronic diseases such as kidney and heart problems, lung ailments and infertility. The researchers attributed these risks to chemotherapy, surgery, radiation sessions and other medical procedures that childhood cancer survivors underwent at early ages.
Aside from facing health related-challenges, the researchers also discovered that the aging of the cancer childhood survivors is accelerated. They found that the overall quality of life of childhood cancer survivors is akin to the middle-aged people of the general population.
Will Future Childhood Cancer Survivors Continue To Suffer?
"What's encouraging is that the lower quality-of-life scores are associated with chronic disease after treatment, not with a history of pediatric cancer itself," Dr. Lisa Diller, study senior author, explained in a news release, as reported by UPI. She added that changes should be made on the current cancer treatments to prevent therapy-related chronic illnesses.
According to CureSearch, 43 children are diagnosed with cancer every day. Over 40,000 children undergo cancer treatments each year and 88 percent of them will survive from the condition.
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