Childhood Cancer Survivors May Face Heart Problems

Treatment of many childhood cancers has been a brilliant medical success story. Survival rates have risen from about 20 percent in the 1940s to around 80 percent now. But there is a price to be paid. Dutch researchers followed 600 survivors of childhood cancers for approximately 15 years. More than a quarter of these young people had heart function abnormalities that might put them at risk for heart failure later in life. The investigators urge ongoing evaluation of survivors who received cancer treatment that could harm the heart. This would permit early detection of problems and early treatment to help maintain cardiac function in these cancer survivors.

[Archives of Internal Medicine, July 26, 2010]