Swedish researchers have surveyed people under the age of 25 who have had cancer since 1958. The study, led by researchers at Linköping University and Region Östergötland, shows that cancer survivors are at greater risk for cardiovascular diseases, other cancers and other diagnoses later in life. In addition, the researchers saw that socioeconomic factors played a role in survival.
Since 1958, Sweden has registered all cancer patients in the National Cancer Register. Swedish researchers have now used this register to study all cancer survivors who had cancer as a child, adolescent or adult to examine outcomes in later life. The results have been published in the The Lancet Regional Health—Europe.
“If you’ve had cancer as a child or adolescent, you have an increased risk of almost all diagnoses in the future. This study lays the foundation for understanding why this is so and what decision-makers need to take into account when it comes to cancer care,” says Laila Hübbert, researcher at Linköping University and consultant at the Cardiology Clinic at Vrinnevi Hospital in Norrköping.
The study’s data spans 63 years. From this data, approximately 65,000 cancer patients under the age of 25 were compared with a control group of 313,000 individuals (a ratio of 1:5), where age, sex and housing situation were matched with the patient group. From other registers, the researchers
