Paediatric genitourinary cancers and late effects of treatment
Cet article fait le point sur les effets indésirables à long terme d'une radiothérapie, d'une chimiothérapie ou d'une intervention chirurgicale pour traiter un cancer génito-urinaire chez l'enfant
The most common childhood genitourinary cancers are Wilms tumour, rhabdomyosarcoma and germ cell tumour (GCT). Long-term survival rates for patients with these tumours are generally excellent, ranging from 80% to 100%. However, the high cure rates have highlighted the need to minimize the long-term complications of treatments (referred to as 'late effects'), which can be caused by the three treatment modalities used to treat genitourinary tumours: surgery, chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Serious late effects, such as death, second cancers and tumour recurrence, are uncommon but do occur occasionally. Chronic health conditions—such as cardiac, pulmonary and fertility disorders—are more prevalent. Given the high prevalence of late effects, survivors of childhood genitourinary malignancies require regular surveillance and health promotion delivered by health-care providers with specialist knowledge of the long-term complications of treatment.