Pediatric cancer is usually survivable. But as survivors grow into adulthood, many will face unique challenges, from physical and psychosocial issues to navigating the world of adult health care.
The American Cancer Society (ACA) projects that nearly 10,000 children from birth through age 14 in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Leukemia, brain and central nervous system tumors, and lymphoma are the most common pediatric cancers. It’s estimated there are more than half a million survivors of childhood cancer in the U.S. today.
Today, about 85% of children with cancer survive five years or more beyond their diagnosis, the ACA says – a vast improvement from 50 years ago, when the five-year survival rate was 58%. A 2020 study projected that children diagnosed with cancer in the 1990s who had reached the five-year survival milestone would live, on average, another 57.1 years.
As more survivors of pediatric cancer reach adulthood, middle age, and beyond, more attention has turned to helping these survivors cope with special chronic health conditions – known as late or long-term effects – related to their cancer, their treatment, or both. Some may even be diagnosed with another form of cancer. Also, many survivors face various psychosocial challenges in adulthood.
University of Colorado Anschutz Cancer Center member Linda Overholser, MD, MPH, a primary care physician, specializes in supporting cancer survivors, including those who have experienced pediatric cancer. She says that with a growing number of patients living longer after a cancer diagnosis, there is an urgent need for health counseling, more cancer screenings, and preventive health measures for cancer survivors, along with effective communication between primary care and oncology providers.
An associate professor in the CU Anschutz Division of General Internal Medicine, Overholser is medical director of the division’s Thriving After Cancer Treatment is Complete (TACTIC) clinic at UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital (UCH). She also represents the cancer center on the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s Survivorship Guidelines Panel, which develops evidence-based recommendations for the care of cancer survivors.
We turned to Overholser to better understand the unique challenges facing survivors of pediatric cancer.
→ Learn more about cancer survivorship programs at the CU Anschutz Cancer Center