[back] Cancers from Chemo and radiation Cancer risk for child
survivors 27 May 2009 Survivors of childhood cancer have a
higher life-long risk of developing a new form of the disease, a
study shows. The Journal of the National Cancer Institute study
blames potent therapies rather than genetics, and is the first
to show the risk is so long-term. The study of 50,000 also found
those diagnosed after 1975 appeared to have a slightly higher
risk of cancer as treatments became more aggressive. But they
also led to a big improvement in child cancer survival rates. A
team from the Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Copenhagen
studied 47,679 people who were diagnosed with cancer before the
age of 20, between 1943 and 2005. They were drawn from the
cancer registries of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and
Sweden. In all, they were three times more likely to develop a
new cancer than their contemporaries - and the risk remained
even as people approached their seventies. Among survivors, the
generation diagnosed betwee