Childhood Cancer Survivors' Quality of Life

As survival rates for childhood cancers have improved dramatically over recent decades, researchers have turned their attention to what life actually looks like for the growing population of long-term survivors — examining physical health, cognitive functioning, emotional wellbeing, and social development across the years and decades following treatment. Tools like the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory and large-scale cohorts such as the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study have made it possible to measure these outcomes systematically, including through parent-proxy reports when children are too young or too ill to self-report. A central challenge in the field is distinguishing the late effects of treatment itself — chemotherapy, radiation, surgery — from the broader psychosocial difficulties that can accompany a serious illness during formative developmental years. Ongoing work is pressing into questions of how to support adolescent and young adult survivors as they navigate the transition out of pediatric care, and how palliative approaches can be integrated earlier to improve quality of life even during active treatment.

Works

82,266

Total citations

935,275

Keywords

Pediatric Quality of Life InventoryChildhood Cancer Survivor StudyHealth-related Quality of LifePediatric Palliative CareAdolescent and Young Adult OncologyPsychosocial Outcomes