The number of childhood cancer survivors is increasing, but many primary care physicians (PCPs) are not comfortable caring for these patients, nor are they always up to date on surveillance guidelines.
As more and more pediatric cancer patients survive into adulthood, busy PCPs will probably find some survivors in their practices. These patients -- including adults -- may have received therapies that are no longer used. Also, the data available about long-term outcomes will vary widely depending on the type of cancer treatment the patient had.
Lisa Diller, MD, chief medical officer of Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, provides tips on managing the survivor of childhood malignancies.
1. Refer patients to cancer clinics for treatment summaries.
Most major cancer centers and hospitals that treat pediatric cancers have developed clinics where survivors can be seen well into adulthood. Refer your patient for a one-time consultation, at which a treatment summary and survivorship care plan can be created, based on a careful review of the patient's records and discussion with the patient and, sometimes, the parent.
For instance, if you refer a 35-year-old woman who had Hodgkin's lymphoma when she was 15, she will get a treatment summary that may document the chemotherapy agents she received as well as her sites of therapeutic radiation treatment. She may learn about her risk of secondary breast cancer, skin cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and premature menopause. She will also learn whether she should return for subspecialty care.
Often, adults who survived childhood cancer know very little about how they were treated. This process gives them ownership.
2. Use guidelines for monitoring pediatric cancer survivors.
Children’s Oncology Group provides guidelines, which are based on research results, best practice, and clinical opinion. They list the various cancer treatments that children underwent over the decades, the risks associated with each, and recommendations for screening.
If a primary care provider has information about the patient's treatment, the guidelines will provide the information needed to construct a plan to screen the patient for secondary effects of the cancer and/or the cancer treatment.
3. Be aware of links between childhood radiation and adult morbidities.
Between two-thirds and three-quarters of children treated in the 1970s-1990s received radiation. In addition to the risk of radiation-induced secondary cancers, radiation also increases a patient’s risk of organ dysfunction.
Patients who received chest radiation, for instance, may develop pulmonary fibrosis, heart valve disease, or early coronary artery disease. Patients who received brain radiation during childhood may have chronic issues with learning, vocational success, and organizational skills, as well as neuroendocrine dysfunction. Patients who received neck radiation are at increased risk of thyroid failure. And women who received radiation to the pelvis are at risk for ovarian failure, as well as pregnancy complications should they become pregnant.
Recommendations on how to monitor patients for these risks vary based on the site of radiation. Women who received chest radiation, for instance, should start mammography screening early and have breast MRIs. Patients who received neck radiation should be screened for hypothyroidism, and those who received abdominal radiation should be screened early for colon cancer.
4. Know that some chemotherapies are linked to serious side effects years later.
Anthracyclines and alkylating agents, both of which continue to be used to treat childhood cancer, have been linked respectively to heart disease and infertility.
When administered to adults in high doses, doxorubicin, the most commonly used anthracycline, carries a well-known risk of acute congestive heart failure. In children, on the other hand, high doses of doxorubicin can lead first to asymptomatic left ventricular dysfunction which then progresses to congestive heart failure. Pharmacologic intervention with beta-blockers and/or ACE inhibitors at early signs of asymptomatic left ventricular dysfunction may delay the onset of overt congestive heart failure, which makes it important to implement a cardiac screening plan for these patients.
Alkylating agents have been linked to low or no sperm count in men and early menopause or primary ovarian failure in women. Encourage male patients who are ready to become fathers to obtain a semen analysis and, if indicated, explore assisted reproductive technology.
While my colleagues and I recently reported encouraging news in a large cohort of cancer survivors about the chances of female survivors becoming pregnant, the fact remains that women treated with alkylators as girls face an elevated risk of infertility. While menstrual history can be a reasonable indicator of ovarian function, women treated with alkylators as children have ovaries that may function with limited reserve, and their fertility may decline faster with age than other women’s.
Female patients trying to become pregnant should see a fertility specialist if they haven’t conceived within 6 months, rather than the year recommended for other women.
5. Promote healthy lifestyles.
In addition to making sure survivors of childhood cancer understand their particular health risks and screening recommendations, urge them to embrace the same healthy lifestyle you encourage for all your patients. This includes not smoking, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, and getting routine screenings unrelated to their cancer.
Smoking is a risk for everyone, but adults who had chest radiation as children are at greater risk of developing lung cancer if they smoke. Likewise, patients who had chest radiation have an elevated risk of heart disease due to their cancer treatment in addition to the general risk of coronary artery disease from high cholesterol and plaque formation.
And being overweight places an extra burden on hearts weakened by early cancer treatment. A healthy lifestyle is absolutely important for childhood cancer survivors.
Lisa Diller, MD, chief medical officer of Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, is founder and director of the David B. Perini, Jr. Quality of Life Clinic, one of the nation's oldest programs for survivors of pediatric cancer. Her recent research includes a study on cardiac screening of survivors of childhood cancer published in the Annals of Internal Medicine and another on pregnancy outcomes for female survivors published in Lancet Oncology.
Disclosures
The author disclosed no relevant relationships with industry.