Endocrine Abstracts

Childhood cancer survivorship is increasing year on year, having more than doubled over the last 50 years, with a continually accruing cohort of currently >40000 people in the UK alone having survived a paediatric cancer. Despite mainstream media’s common portrayal of "beating cancer", many patients in fact face long-term chronic morbidity, including >50% having at least one endocrinopathy. Whilst these are often mislabelled as "late effects", many of these evolve from diagnosis. The presumption that endocrine dysfunction is easily treatable is debatable, particularly in the context of the hypothalamic syndrome. Newer evolving immunological and molecular therapies also bring new challenges with the need for monitoring of off-target endocrine side effects. As such, the paediatric endocrinologist should be involved as an integral part of the oncology MDT from diagnosis, and transition to appropriate adult endocrinology services for lifelong follow-up is eventually needed for many of these patients.