Childhood cancer: exercise is medicine

Abstract

Advances in the management of childhood cancer have provided meaningful improvements in clinical prognosis. These improvements have led to an increase in the number of survivors, who often have post-treatment complications that can cause adverse health outcomes later in life. Sequelae associated with cancer treatment (chemotherapy and radiotherapy) can lead to harmful and often persistent changes in the developmental process, in the cardiopulmonary (eg, cardiotoxicity and impaired ventricular function years after treatment) and metabolic (eg, dyslipidaemia) systems, and in body composition (excess abdominal adiposity coupled with muscle weakness and poor bone health; appendix).