The devastating aftereffects of treating childhood cancer

An article in Science magazine about pediatric cancer survivors, who survived treatment only to be diagnosed later with grave aftereffects ranging from heart disease to a second cancer caused by treatment for the first, interviews Steven Lipshultz, professor and chair of pediatrics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, about his research on the impact that losing healthy heart cells during cancer treatment can have later in life. Once those children reach adulthood, "the mass of the heart is inadequate for the size of the body," he said, adding that he has also found that some survivors experience a thinning of the walls of their heart or irreversible damage to heart muscle, further stressing the organ.