While the treatment of various cancers using radiation therapy for conditions including Hodgkin’s disease is regarded as a “medical miracle”, patients are often unaware that radiation can negatively impact organs including the heart, the lungs and the esophagus. Specific to the heart, there is a strong association among radiation therapy and heart valve disease, coronary artery disorders, ascending aorta defects and pericardium issues.

This article describes the results of a study from the University of California San Francisco. It highlights one of the topics Dr. Micheal Stubblefield mentioned in his presentation at our conference. It comes from a paper that was published in the British Medical Journal Supportive and Palliative Care, July 2022. First author Steven W. Cheung, MD notes the marked incidence of hearing loss and tinnitus in survivors, owing to chemotherapy drugs that contained platinum as well as those that contained taxanes.

Death due to a second primary cancer occurred nearly twice as often among adolescent and young adult cancer survivors compared with the general population, according to study results published in Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Cardiovascular screening is critical for Hodgkin Lymphoma survivors. Anthracyclines and radiation put childhood cancer survivors at higher risk for heart failure and heart disease.

​More cancer patients live longer. Few get the help they need to stay healthy. 50-year Hodgkin Lymphoma survivor, Susan Leigh, describes the challenges of long-term cancer survivors.

A wonderful history of the “War on Cancer” and includes several quotes from Dr. Vincent DeVita–one of our Hodgkin lymphoma heroes! Also mentioned in the article is our “own” Susie Leigh, fellow long-term Hodgkin lymphoma survivor.

In this issue of the Journal, de Vries and colleagues examine the cause-specific late mortality among a multi-center Dutch cohort of Hodgkin lymphoma survivors.

The good news is that for most patients, the long-term prognosis for childhood Hodgkin lymphoma is excellent. For patients who have been through months or even years of difficult chemotherapy and radiation therapy, it is easy to see the final treatment—the declaration of “cancer free” or even “cured”—as the final destination of a long journey. Survivorship, however, is in fact its own journey, and one that can also be extremely challenging, both physically and emotionally.