Cancer disfigurement, hair loss takes toll

The increased risk of disfigurement and persistent hair loss caused by childhood cancer can cause emotional distress later in life, U.S. researchers say. First author Karen Kinahan, an advanced practice nurse at Northwestern Medicine and colleagues used data from the Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. The researchers compared scarring, disfigurement and persistent hair loss reported by adult survivors of childhood cancer to that reported by their siblings, who did not have cancer during childhood. The study involved 14,000 childhood cancer survivors -- all of whom were treated between 1970 and 1986 -- who were surveyed with two questionnaires, once in 1992 and again in 2003. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found survivors with persistent hair loss had increased risk of anxiety; female survivors with persistent hair loss had increased risk of depressive symptoms; and survivors with a head or neck, arm or leg disfigurement had increased risk of depression. "The results show that cancer treatments can affect childhood cancer survivors' physical appearances and their quality of life long after they turn 18," Kinahan said in a statement. "I have patients who are asymmetrical because of radiation treatments, others with scars on their faces and necks from biopsies and surgeries and some who've had the amputation of a limb."