Young survivors of childhood cancer

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].