Leukemia survivors have lifelong issues

ANN ARBOR, Mich., April 2 (UPI) -- Surviving leukemia may not end health struggles because 65 percent of survivors suffer lifelong conditions U.S. researchers find.

University of Michigan researchers say survivors were 3.7 times more likely to have a severe or life-threatening medical condition and 2.8 times more likely to suffer from multiple chronic -- most often musculoskeletal, cardiac and neurological -- conditions than their siblings were.

"It is important that we educate the patients, families, and their physicians about these long-term issues," study lead author Dr. Rajen Mody says in a statement. "As therapeutic interventions improve and more children beat leukemia, it's important to work toward not only higher survival rates, but also improved overall wellness."

The study of acute lymphoblastic leukemia survivors, published online in Blood, also finds a survival rate of 87 percent in those having radiation therapy compared to 96 percent who did not have radiation.

The population evaluated in this study was part of the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study -- a multi-institutional cohort of long-term childhood cancer survivors. Of the 5,778 survivors in the cohort, 4,151, or 86 percent, participated.