Calls to establish a survivorship programme for child cancer survivors
There will be calls to establish a children's cancer survivorship programme at a conference in Dublin Castle today.
The organisation CanCare4Living says cancer occurring during childhood in Ireland is cured in about 80% of children.
However, cancer treatments can damage healthy organs and lead to late effects, including heart damage and secondary cancer.
Patricia McColgan, Chair of CanCare4Living, says cancer survivors would really benefit from long-term follow-up care.
"When people have finished their treatment, we would like for them to be enrolled in a survivors programme and that means that they would have risk adapted service," said Ms McColgan.
"So basically, their doctors would identify what treatments they had and what likely consequences there would be from those treatments and then arrange for appropriate testing."
