Monitoring of patients with hematological malignancies after anticancer therapy

Abstract

The number of patients achieved continuous complete remission constantly increasing as a result of pediatric hematology development. Improvement and optimization of treatment protocols includes both efficacy increase and toxicity reduction, but today any type therapy is associated with risk of long-term adverse effects.Children and adolescents who have received anticancer treatment – is a special cohort whose health requires a special observation. Thismonitoring program should be aimed at both remission control and early detection of possible treatment long-term side effects. Some side effects have long (five, ten or more years) latent period and observation of such patients should be carried out for a long time, respectively. This article provides a brief overview of international recommendations for monitoring children and adolescents after anticancer therapy, analyzed the situation with follow-up in Russia, and offers the variant of follow-up service organization in the clinic, based on the own experience. The article also considers issues about relapse and secondary tumors diagnosis. Using international recommendations the main side effects of chemo- and radiation therapy systematized. In conclusion, an example of a monitoring program designed for the individual patient, based on age, gender, previous disease and treatment is shown.

Keywords

• hematological malignancies
• children
• outpatient observation
• follow-up
• leukemias
• lymphomas
• oncology
• long-term side effects
• adolescents
• remission