Childhood Cancer Survivors May Feel Middle-Aged As Young Adults

Those who survive childhood cancer tend to feel prematurely aged, say scientists. They find that on the whole the health-related quality of life in young adult survivors is like that of middle-aged adults.

Such survivors also face higher risks of "heart disease, infertility, lung disease, cancers and other chronic conditions" that are linked to the earlier forms of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Hence, young adults tend to feel older that they actually are.

Childhood Cancer Survivors Study (CCSS) discloses that just 20 percent of survivors between 18 to 49 years show no chronic conditions. The younger survivors between 18 and 29 showed an average quality of life score of 0.78, roughly equivalent to 40 to 49-year-old adults in the general population.

"This research provides an easily accessible way to compare adult survivors of childhood cancer to the general population, in terms of their health-related quality of life, which normally declines as people age," said Lisa Diller, chief medical officer of Dana-Farber/Boston Children's and senior author of the study. "Our findings indicate survivors' accelerated aging and also help us understand the health-related risks associated with having had cancer as a child. What's encouraging is that the lower quality of life scores are associated with the chronic disease after treatment, not with a history of pediatric cancer itself. If we can prevent treatment-related conditions by changes in the therapy we use for cancer, then childhood cancer will become an acute, rather than a chronic, illness."

The studies can help people to get an insight into what childhood cancer survivors have to experience, which is a different way of understanding their health challenges. This may also help in the search for new treatments to help survivors.

The findings were recently published  in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.