BACKGROUND: Young adult survivors of childhood @entity981 ( @entity981 ) treated with protocols including cranial radiotherapy demonstrate a persistent @entity1017 and reduced final height. Published reports on the effects on growth of different oncologic therapies are conflicting and difficult to interpret because they combined @entity1 treated with both cranial irradiation and multi-agent chemotherapy. Our study investigated the effect of chemotherapy alone on body mass index (BMI) and on growth at the achievement of final height in a homogeneous cohort of Italian childhood @entity981 survivors. METHODS: We retrospectively studied 162 Caucasian @entity1 treated on the Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology protocols without radiotherapy between 1989 and 2000 at five Italian centers with 107 inclusions (58 males). Height- and BMI-standard deviation score ( @entity214 ) were collected at diagnosis of @entity981 , at the end of treatment and at the achievement of final height. Changes in height @entity214 and BMI @entity214 with time were analyzed using dependent sample Student's t-test. RESULTS: A significant reduction of height- @entity214 was documented during treatment in both genders. This reduction of height- @entity214 was not followed by an appropriate catch-up growth, despite the achievement of a mean final height within the normal range. At diagnosis females showed a lower mean BMI- @entity214 than males. During treatment, in the whole population, BMI- @entity214 increased significantly. After it, while males lost BMI- @entity214 , females showed its persistent increase. CONCLUSIONS: Survivors of childhood @entity981 generally seemed to achieve a normal final height with a BMI within the normal range. These parameters appeared to be only minimally affected by chemotherapy. Nevertheless, height catch-up growth was not completed after chemotherapy in both genders and all @entity1 experienced an increase of BMI- @entity214 during chemotherapy that only females seemed to conserve until the achievement of final height.

Final height and body mass index in adult survivors of childhood XXXX treated without cranial radiotherapy: a retrospective longitudinal multicenter Italian study.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['children', 'patients'] @entity981 :: ('MESH:D054198', 'Disease') :: ['ALL', 'acute lymphoblastic leukemia'] @entity214 :: ('CHEBI:8984', 'Chemical') :: ['SDS'] @entity1017 :: ('MESH:D015430', 'Disease') :: ['weight gain']
@entity981 :: (MESH:D054198,Disease) :: ['acute lymphoblastic leukemia']
