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Have you ever wondered how a child’s world changes when faced with a serious illness, and what it takes to emerge stronger on the other side? In India, childhood cancer touches countless young lives, requiring them to rely entirely on family, caregivers, and medical teams during their recovery journey. This path is not just about overcoming the disease, it is about crafting a new life filled with hope, resilience, and purpose.
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Everything changes
Childhood cancers in India most often involve blood cancers such as leukaemia, brain and central nervous system tumours, and lymphomas. Early recognition is critical, but symptoms are easily mistaken for common ailments. Prolonged fevers, unexplained weight loss, persistent fatigue, bone or joint pain, recurrent infections, and unusual lumps or swelling are among the warning signs. In retinoblastoma, a white glow in the pupil or misaligned eyes can be early indicators. In many rural communities, limited awareness and access to specialised healthcare delay diagnosis, compounding the challenge.
A diagnosis of cancer during childhood, whether under the age of 10 or in the more vulnerable adolescent years of 10–18, is a life-altering moment. For younger children, treatment is especially demanding, as they depend completely on caregivers, while older children and teenagers face challenges of interrupted schooling, loss of independence, and social reintegration. For families, the long months of treatment are endured in complete dependence on doctors, caregivers, and support systems. Yet survival is not the end of the story. Beyond remission lies the daunting challenge of rebuilding a life interrupted at its most formative stage.
Life after remission
India’s cancer centres now report survival rates of 60–70% in children, and for certain diseases such as acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, retinoblastoma, and some lymphomas, they reach 80–90% — a dramatic improvement from two decades ago. But the end of treatment rarely marks a clean break from illness. Roughly a third of survivors live with long-term effects of therapy, hormonal imbalances, growth delays, metabolic disorders, and neurocognitive difficulties. Survivorship clinics address these issues with structured follow-up care, and regular monitoring reduces further complications.
Yet the medical challenges are only part of the story. Survivors must re-enter schools, rebuild friendships, and adapt to environments disrupted by long absences. Many grapples with anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress. Some face stigma from peers or communities who misunderstand cancer and its consequences. For adolescents in particular, the return to normal life can feel almost as demanding as treatment itself.
Families and caregivers
Parents and caregivers carry much of the responsibility for easing this transition. Honest and age-appropriate conversations help children process their experiences and build resilience. Continued medical vigilance, through regular check-ups and adherence to therapies, ensures that late effects are detected early. Educational reintegration requires advocacy, securing flexible learning arrangements, bridging courses, or hospital-based schooling when needed. Good nutrition and carefully planned physical activity support physical recovery, while structured routines restore confidence.
But families themselves need support. The psychological and financial burdens of caregiving are immense, and burnout is common. Access to counselling, peer support groups, and community networks can be as important for parents as for the child. Programmes such as those run by CanKids KidsCan and the ImPaCCT Foundation offer counselling, scholarships, vocational training, and financial aid. St. Jude India ChildCare Centres provide safe accommodation, education, and rehabilitation for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, extending help long after treatment has ended.
An evolving ecosystem
The Indian context is marked by striking contrasts. At premier centres, survival rates approach global standards. Yet outside metropolitan hospitals, delayed diagnoses and uneven access to advanced therapies remain barriers. Social stigma continues to shadow families, limiting opportunities for survivors to reintegrate fully. Encouragingly, more than 3,500 survivors are now enrolled in formal survivorship programmes across the country, receiving sustained medical, educational, and psychosocial support. These initiatives represent an important cultural shift: recognition that surviving cancer is not the final goal, but the beginning of a longer journey to live well.
A hopeful future
The resilience of childhood cancer survivors offers a powerful lesson in endurance. Their stories demonstrate that survival and thriving are not synonymous, but with the right structures in place, they can be. The task ahead for India’s health system is not only to expand access to timely diagnosis and treatment, but also to strengthen the long-term ecosystem of care through a multidisciplinary approach. This means not only curing children with cancer but ensuring their quality of life, offering long-term follow-up, and providing remedial and preventive measures as needed.
Early recognition, comprehensive follow-up, and unwavering family and community support remain the cornerstones of this transformation. With them, young survivors, whether under 10 or in their teenage years, can look forward to new beginnings defined by hope rather than hardship.
(Dr. Intezar Mehdi is director and HOD, paediatric haematology oncology and BMT, HCG KR Unit, Bangalore. drintezar@hcgel.com)
Published – October 04, 2025 02:42 pm IST
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