Abstract
Recently the late effects have become an important problem in the treatment of pediatric malignant tumors. We performed follow up study of the long-term survivors (more than 5 years) in our hospital, with a particular reference to skeletal damages after radiation therapy. Among 46 survivors, 25 patients had a history of radiation therapy, and 5 of them suffered from the impairment of skeletal growth (3 ganglioneuroblastomas, 1 Wilms' tumor, 1 hemangiosarcoma of retroperitoneum). Four of these 5 patients were irradiate with a dose of more than 30 Gy of 60^Co and the late effects of radiation were scoliosis, kyphosis and the growth impairment of ribs. In this report, these cases are presented with a review of the literature. The results indicated that the careful long-term observation in neccessary for pediatric cancer survivors to find the late effects of multimodal treatments as early as possible.
