Cure is not enough: late consequences associated with radiation treatment.

Giulio D’Angio, MD, is Director of the Children’s Cancer Research Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Professor of Radiation Oncology, Radiology and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Introduction and Background The modem multi-modal team approach to the patient with cancer that includes careful weighing of risks against benefits can be said to have been born in pediatric oncology. It had its origins almost a half century ago when routine postoperative irradiation of the flank was added to nephrectomy for the management of children with Wilms’ tumor, thus uniting the surgeon and radiation therapist in a con-