Originally published September 27 2005
Childhood cancer survivors often have social and learning difficulties
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Children who are cancer survivors are more likely than children who have never had cancer to struggle with learning and social difficulties and low self esteem as they grow up, according to a new study, and researchers say a number of factors may contribute to these difficulties, including the effects of the disease itself, brain damage caused by radiation or certain types of chemotherapy and the fact that children with cancer must miss so much school for treatment.
Children who survive cancer are more likely than children without cancer to have social and educational problems as they grow up, according to the first large, nation-wide study of the issue published in the October 15 issue of the journal Cancer.
Dr. Maru Barrera of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and her team also found that children with higher self esteem and those with more highly educated parents were less likely to experience such difficulties.
Radiation treatment and some types of chemotherapy, as well as central nervous system tumors and leukemia, have been tied to learning problems, Dr. Barrera and her team note in their report.
The researchers matched 800 cancer survivors 17 years old or younger to 923 children of the same age and sex who were never diagnosed with cancer.
While 23 percent of healthy kids' parents reported that they had problems in school or other academic difficulties, 46 percent of cancer survivors' parents did.
While 19 percent of the cancer survivors had no close friends, according to their parents, 8 percent of the control children did.
Cancer survivors were also somewhat less likely to use friends as confidants, with 58 percent doing so compared to 67 percent of children who never had cancer.
Children who had received radiation focused on the cranial area were also at greater risk, while children with higher self-esteem and those whose parents' education had extended past secondary school were less likely to have social and educational problems.
"Clearly what the study does show is that it is important to identify those survivors who are at the highest risk for educational and social outcomes, and then design programs to help them reduce the poor outcomes," Dr. Barrera told Reuters Health.
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