TY - JOUR
T1 - Educational attainment in survivors of childhood cancer in Denmark, Finland, and Sweden
AU - Mogensen, Hanna
AU - Tettamanti, Giorgio
AU - Frederiksen, Line Elmerdahl
AU - Talbäck, Mats
AU - Härkonen, Juho
AU - Modig, Karin
AU - Pedersen, Camilla
AU - Krøyer, Anja
AU - Hirvonen, Elli
AU - Kyrönlahti, Anniina
AU - Heyman, Mats
AU - Holmqvist, Anna Sällfors
AU - Hasle, Henrik
AU - Madanat-Harjuoja, Laura
AU - Malila, Nea
AU - Winther, Jeanette Falck
AU - Erdmann, Friederike
AU - Feychting, Maria
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by NordForsk under grant 76111, and the Swedish Childhood Cancer Foundation under grant PR2020-0130 and PR2022-0155. The funding sources had no role in the design of the study, collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data, writing of the manuscript, or the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. Open access funding provided by Karolinska Institute.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The Author(s).
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - Background: Survivors of childhood cancer may face difficulties at school. We investigated whether childhood cancer affects attainment of upper secondary education, in a register-based cohort study from Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, where we limit bias from selection and participation. Methods: From the national cancer registers, we identified all long-term survivors of childhood cancer diagnosed aged 0–14 years in 1971–2005 (n = 7629), compared them to matched population comparisons (n = 35,411) and siblings (n = 6114), using odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: Overall, 6127 survivors (80%) had attained upper secondary education by age 25, compared to 84% among comparison groups. Elevated OR for not attaining this level were mainly confined to survivors of central nervous system (CNS) tumours (ORSurv_PopComp2.05, 95%CI: 1.83–2.29). Other risk groups were survivors who had spent more time in hospital around cancer diagnosis and those who had hospital contacts in early adulthood, particularly psychiatric. Survivors of all cancer types were less likely to have attained upper secondary education without delay. Conclusions: Although survivors of childhood cancer experienced delays in their education, many had caught up by age 25. Except for survivors of CNS tumours, survivors attained upper secondary education to almost the same extent as their peers.
AB - Background: Survivors of childhood cancer may face difficulties at school. We investigated whether childhood cancer affects attainment of upper secondary education, in a register-based cohort study from Denmark, Finland, and Sweden, where we limit bias from selection and participation. Methods: From the national cancer registers, we identified all long-term survivors of childhood cancer diagnosed aged 0–14 years in 1971–2005 (n = 7629), compared them to matched population comparisons (n = 35,411) and siblings (n = 6114), using odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). Results: Overall, 6127 survivors (80%) had attained upper secondary education by age 25, compared to 84% among comparison groups. Elevated OR for not attaining this level were mainly confined to survivors of central nervous system (CNS) tumours (ORSurv_PopComp2.05, 95%CI: 1.83–2.29). Other risk groups were survivors who had spent more time in hospital around cancer diagnosis and those who had hospital contacts in early adulthood, particularly psychiatric. Survivors of all cancer types were less likely to have attained upper secondary education without delay. Conclusions: Although survivors of childhood cancer experienced delays in their education, many had caught up by age 25. Except for survivors of CNS tumours, survivors attained upper secondary education to almost the same extent as their peers.
U2 - 10.1038/s41416-023-02499-1
DO - 10.1038/s41416-023-02499-1
M3 - Article
C2 - 37993542
AN - SCOPUS:85177547921
SN - 0007-0920
VL - 130
SP - 260
EP - 268
JO - British Journal of Cancer
JF - British Journal of Cancer
IS - 2
ER -