Sheri Prentiss, MD, MPH, CPS/A, CPE, FACPE is both a clinician and a cancer survivor. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and has been living with one of the most difficult repercussions from her treatment – lymphedema. Dr. Prentiss poignantly describes her ongoing battle with this late effect.

The data indicates that there is, indeed, an increased risk for pulmonary issues, including pneumonia, for young adult survivors. The article does not specify what causes this outcome, but we do know that radiation to the chest area can be a major culprit. If you have been treated for cancer, especially with radiation, you may want to be followed by a pulmonologist in addition to your other providers. Many Hodgkin’s survivors have regular “pulmonary function tests,” or PFT’s, to help monitor our lung health.

Here is a comprehensive look at a late effect that many Hodgkin’s survivors suffer from – dropped head syndrome. While we have understood that the primary cause may be radiation fibrosis, there are some studies that point to some chemotherapy agents that could also produce these symptoms.

Cancer diagnoses are associated with a lower risk for subsequent dementia diagnosis, with the relationship strongest for cancers with poor prognoses, underscoring the need to investigate biological and survival-related mechanisms linking cancer and dementia.

A new article from Medscape examines how many cancer survivors face health challenges similar to “accelerated aging” – including early heart disease, frailty, and other conditions. If you’re a survivor, consider sharing this article with your primary care doctor. It’s a powerful way to help them understand what survivorship really means.

“Scanxiety,” or the fear that accompanies follow-up testing for cancer survivors, is a common and understandable consequence of what we’ve all been through. In this article, nurses at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NYC offer some of their “tried and true” methods for coping with this. While the focus in this article is largely on breast cancer, the phenomenon of scanxiety does not belong to a single cancer diagnosis. It affects us all.

Childhood cancer survivors face accelerated aging, with studies showing they develop serious health conditions nearly 18 years earlier than the general population. Even without radiation therapy, survivors remain at higher risk for secondary cancers and cardiovascular disease, underscoring the lasting impact of chemotherapy and other treatments. While survival rates have improved and new guidelines, care tools, and therapies are helping, long-term risks persist, making lifelong follow-up and protective strategies essential.

Hodgkin International’s Rachel Gingold reflects on 36 years of survivorship.

Young adulthood is full of challenges, but when a cancer diagnosis enters the picture, things get really intense, really fast. Fresh out of undergrad at 24, my life changed overnight when the symptoms I’d been having for nearly a year turned out to be Hodgkin lymphoma – cancer.

A major new study from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study shows that AYA (Adolescent and Young Adult) cancer survivors continue to face excess health risks well into their 50s and beyond. Even decades after treatment, conditions like heart disease, frailty, and other chronic illnesses remain more common among survivors than in the general population. This is especially important for Hodgkin lymphoma survivors who were treated as teens or young adults and may not have regular follow-up care today.