Cancer Survivors Face Long-Term Health Challenges Years After Treatment

Watch the full story on WGN-TV News.

The number of young people being diagnosed with cancer is on the rise. And while the treatments can be life-saving, years later they are life-altering.

Tina Chip, is a two-time cancer survivor. “I was 16, a senior in high school and just super excited to have that fun year and I felt a lump in my neck,” she told Dina Bair in this WGN-TV News story.

That lump was Hodgkins Lymphoma. “So, I went every day for four months and received the radiation from pretty much my entire body.” Just six years later, another cancer diagnosis. Breast cancer caused by the very treatment – radiation to her chest wall — that cured her Hodgkins.

The future for childhood and young adult cancer survivors is the potential for what doctors call the late effects of radiation and chemotherapy. “I can’t take away the therapies they received, nor would I want to because it helped cure them, put them in remission. But I would like to try to find things before they become a problem,” said Aarati Didwania, MD, a professor in the Division of Internal Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Dr.Didwania and Karen Kinahan, DNP, APN, FNP-BC, lead Lurie Cancer Center’s STAR Program (Survivors Taking Action and Responsibility) for adult survivors of childhood cancer.

Through the STAR Program, part of Lurie Cancer Center’s Cancer Survivorship Institute, doctors at Northwestern Medicine monitor for liver, kidney and thyroid malfunction; secondary skin and breast cancers; and blood and heart abnormalities. “So, we end up getting a lot of patients, sometimes in their 40s and even 50s, that have not been in a pediatric survivor program because there wasn’t one for them, and now they have had a medical consequence,” said Kinahan, a nurse practitioner with expertise in the late effects of childhood cancer.

“I’ve survived cancer as a young adult and now I’m going to make sure I stay on top of everything else my body may give into,” Chip said.

For the mother of three, the fight is far from over. “My aortic valve is part of the area that would have gotten hit by the radiation and also possibly chemo long-term effects,” she said. “And as time progresses, my valve isn’t pumping blood out to the rest of my body.”

“Those that have come out of that experience often manifest cardiac problems 20, 30 years later,” said James Flaherty, MD, an interventional cardiologist with Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. “We did what’s known as an aortic valve study,” he said. “We went across the aortic valve and measured the pressure below it and above it, in the left ventricle and the aorta to see how much narrowing or pressure drop there was across that valve.”

As survivors age – thanks to effective treatments — so does their tissue that was damaged long ago. Because there are more people surviving, “there are more effects we have to look out for and we have to train providers to be aware of these things and to know when and how to look for them,” Didwania said.

Doctors will continue to monitor Chip’s heart. Eventually, she’ll likely require a valve repair. “You have to become your own advocate and fight for yourself and know that this is now part of your life,” she said. “You are always fighting the disease.”

Radiation has changed since her treatment, more targeted and precise, in some cases lower doses. Still, even patients diagnosed and treated today will likely be at risk 20 or 30 years from now. Knowledge is power.

Learn more about the STAR Program.

Learn about the Cardio-Oncology Program, designed to provide seamless care between cardiology and oncology services for every patient at Northwestern Medicine affected by cancer.