The Aflac Cancer Center and Blood Disorders Service of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta further improves the quality of life and medical outcomes for childhood and adolescent cancer survivors through its Cancer Survivor program. The program aims to improve continued health care and survivor quality of life.
The Cancer Survivor Outlook
One in approximately 640 young adults in the United States today is a survivor of pediatric cancer, and two-thirds to three-quarters of those survivors suffer from some type of significant adverse health outcome. Many pediatric and adolescent cancers today have a 75 percent to 80 percent cure rate. A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that almost 62 percent of adult survivors of pediatric cancer 30 years post-diagnosis had significant chronic health conditions such as osteoporosis, growth failure, delayed puberty, infertility, musculoskeletal problems, and cognitive and psychosocial dysfunction. Approximately 28 percent had severe, disabling or life-threatening health conditions such as second malignancy, congestive heart failure, pulmonary lung fibrosis, and complications to the liver, kidney and gastrointestinal organ systems.
First Statewide Effort
In 2001, the Aflac Cancer Center established the Cancer Survivor program with only one physician, a pediatric oncology nurse practitioner and a program coordinator. Today, the program boasts a staff of nine who follow nearly 1,000 childhood and adolescent cancer survivors in search of ways to improve their continued health care and quality of life.
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