As a survivor of childhood cancer, it is important you are offered the opportunity to understand your previous treatment in a specialist long-term follow-up clinic. You may know a lot about your illness or you may know very little.
Long-term follow-up clinics provide you with an opportunity to learn about and plan the monitoring and support you may need. Long-term follow-up aims to detect and manage any problems caused by your cancer or its treatment, and how you can stay healthy throughout your life.
What to expect in follow-up care
Progress in follow-up support services
If you were treated for childhood cancer some time ago and did not receive any follow-up care after your treatment finished, you can contact the long-term follow-up clinic direct where you received your treatment:
Directory of long-term follow-up clinics
What are long-term side effects of treatment?
Long-term side effects (called late effects) can be physical, occurring in any organ or body system, or psychological. They can occur because of the cancer, its treatment, related illness, a underlying condition or because of treatment-related complications. The hospital team at your follow-up clinic will help you with specific information about which late effects are relevant to you.
Approximately two out of three of survivors will have a issue or ‘late effect’ related to their treatment. For some this will be very minor, for others it may be more major. The risk of a late effect occurring is different for everyone and depends on:
- your type of cancer
- the age when you were treated
- the treatment you received
We encourage you to ask your key worker or follow-up team about anything that they have not covered. You may have been treated for a tumour or condition that was not cancerous but because of the treatment you had this information still applies to you. If this is the case, your doctor will explain why.