The childhood cancer study looked at men and women

The childhood cancer study looked at men and women whose malignancies had been diagnosed before their 21st birthdays. The subjects were among the first generation of childhood-cancer survivors. Their average age at the time of the study was 26.

Today, an estimated 270,000 people in the United States have survived childhood cancer.
Philip Rosoff, a Duke University medical professor who wrote a commentary accompanying their results, believes doctors of many disciplines must be trained to provide vigorous monitoring. Some survivors are resistant to ongoing care, which they associate with often traumatic childhood memories of their disease. Rosoff recalls a teenager who returned a decade after his treatment: "The minute he saw the IV pole, he broke out in a cold sweat and never came back."