Medical and psychosocial issues in childhood cancer survivors

Abstract

More than 12,000 children and adolescents younger than 20 years are diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States.1 With the use of risk-based therapies, the overall 5-year survival rate is approaching 80%, resulting in a growing population of childhood cancer survivors. In 1997, there were an estimated 270,000 survivors of childhood cancer; over two-thirds of these were older than 20 years of age.2 This figure translates into 1 in 810 individuals under the age of 20 and 1 in 640 individuals between the ages of 20 and 39 years having successfully survived childhood cancer (see Chapter 62). © 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.