Researchers sequencing healthy liver tissue from children treated for liver cancer found an average of about 2,200 mutations per sample, a burden more typical of a middle-aged adult liver than a child's. The finding, published in the journal Science, offers a biological explanation for something clinicians have documented for years without being able to trace: why childhood cancer survivors face elevated risk of liver disease and new cancers decades after treatment ends.
The survival numbers belong in the same sentence, as a STAT News report on the liver findings made clear. Before platinum-based chemotherapy, only 20% to 30% of children with hepatoblastoma survived. Cisplatin pushed the five-year survival rate for localized disease above 90%. This is a study about the cost of a treatment that works, not a reason to question whether it should be used.
