Lets talk about bald kids.
Submitted by Dr.Kattlove’s Cancer Blog
I’m talking about children who have been treated for cancer. Invariably, the chemotherapy makes them bald. They make great poster children to advertise children’s cancer centers, but they often don’t end up smiling as they do in the posters. Although their hair grows back, other organs are not so lucky. Virtually all organs can be damaged by their treatment. Their heart, their thyroid gland as well as other glands can suffer. And they have a high risk of developing a new cancer. Girls have an especially high rate of developing breast cancer as they mature. Also, many children will have problems with development and learning.
Now cancer in children is not that common. Only about 16,000 cases are diagnosed each year. The good news is that around 80 percent are cured so there are a lot of them alive – around 270,000 survivors of childhood cancer here in the U.S..
After their bout with cancer, they need high quality follow-up care. But, according to researchers from the University of Chicago and Children’s Hospital of Boston, they may not be getting it. Because of the long-term problems of childhood cancer survivors, guidelines have been developed on how to follow these children. To see who has read them, the researchers sent a questionnaire to pediatric oncologists (doctors who treat children with cancer).
The doctors were presented with simple vignettes of fictitious cases and asked how they would manage their follow-up care. Sad to say, many flunked this test. They didn’t know the recommended procedures specified by the guidelines and would have missed thyroid failure or heart damage or even the development of breast cancer. This is unfortunate. The kids have suffered enough. They need better care.
Their problems will get even larger when these children make their inevitable transition to their adult doctor after they outgrow their pediatric specialists. I’m sure most internists don’t have a clue about following these children when they become adults. This is a perfect situation for electronic medical records. They would be available all the doctors and could have imbedded in them, the requirements for testing that these children will need. Maybe, some day this will happen.
On the positive side of the news about childhood cancer is a study from Norway looking at whether the parents of children with cancer are more likely to divorce at sometime. This is a good question because there is no doubt that having a child with cancer will stress a marriage. I remember a study that suggested that the parents of these children can even suffer a mild form of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), the same disorder suffered by soldiers returning from war.
Fortunately, divorce was no more common in these families. Good news. But, the authors point out that Norway provides a lot for support to these families because Norway is a welfare state that provides public health care to all citizens, free of charge. In addition, leaves of absence and various economic welfare benefits are commonly given to parents
with chronically ill children.
Would U.S. parents be so fortunate? I doubt it.
