Many adult survivors of childhood cancer are not concerned about their future health or developing new cancers, according to a new study published in Cancer.
The authors studied data collected from more than 15,000 survivors of childhood cancer and more than 3,000 siblings of survivors. Survivors had a median age of 26 years old and a median time since diagnosis of 17 years.
Overall, a “substantial proportion” of survivors were not concerned about their future health (31 percent) or developing new cancers (40 percent). The siblings were slightly less concerned about their future health and similarly concerned about developing new cancers.
Lead author Todd Gibson, PhD, of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, explained the importance of surveying the siblings of these survivors in a prepared statement.
“This feature is a real strength of the analysis, in that we can assess whether the responses of the survivors are similar to those of siblings, who were like the survivors in most respects, but were not exposed to cancer and cancer treatments,” Gibson said. “So, we can hypothesize that any differences we see in the survivor group are related to this unique experience of cancer and cancer treatment.”
Gibson noted that he and his colleagues were surprised by their findings. They aren’t sure why survivors aren’t more concerned about their future health, but they did have some guesses.
“At this point, we can only speculate, but the most obvious reason would be that survivors may not fully understand their risks,” he said in the same prepared statement. “We do know from prior studies that not all survivors are fully aware of the specific treatments they received and how those might increase their risks of late effects.”
In addition, Gibson added, it’s possible some survivors are fully aware of their increased risk, but they “choose not to be concerned.”
The researchers will continue to study this topic, according to the statement. Gaining a better understanding of why so many childhood cancer survivors are not concerned will be a priority.
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.