VOA慢速英语20061025a

HEALTH REPORT - Cancer Drugs Save Children's Lives But Come With RisksBy Caty Weaver¹

Broadcast: Wednesday, October 25, 2006

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.




Doctors say very few children survived cancer before the nineteen seventies. Improved treatments now offer hope of long-term survival² for almost eighty percent of young cancer patients. Yet the chemotherapy drugs and radiation used to stop their cancers can lead to other problems later.

A newly reported study looked at more than ten thousand adults who survived childhood cancers. They were treated between nineteen seventy and ninety eighty-six. Their average age at the time of the study was twenty-six.

The study compared their medical histories with those of three thousand of their brothers and sisters.

The researchers found that sixty-two percent of the cancer survivors⁴ had at least one long-term health problem. The same was true of only thirty-seven percent of the brothers and sisters.

The cancer survivors were eight times as likely as their siblings⁵ to have severe or life-threatening conditions as adults. And many of the survivors had three or more conditions.

The cancer survivors were at higher risk of problems like heart disease and early bone loss. Chemotherapy can damage bone growth during an important period of development. And radiation for some cancers can increase the risk of other cancers later.

Survivors of bone cancers, cancers of the central nervous system and Hodgkin's disease were at highest risk for health problems as adults. The study also found that girls who survived cancer were more likely than boys to have problems later.

Doctors say newer cancer treatments are a little safer but not much. Still, the good news is that many of the conditions linked to cancer treatments can be found when they are still treatable.

Kevin Oeffinger of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York was lead author of the study. He says doctors should watch closely for problems as childhood cancer survivors get older. He says doctors should also be sure to provide information about problems that a child cancer patient might expect in the future. And he says it is especially important for survivors to eat right, exercise and not smoke.

The report is from the Childhood Cancer Survivor³ Study. The findings appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine.

And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. You can get more health news and download MP3 files and transcripts⁶ of our reports at www.unsv.com. I'm Mario Ritter.

1 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

2 survival   

n.留住生命，生存，残存，幸存者

参考例句：

• The doctor told my wife I had a fifty-fifty chance of survival.医生告诉我的妻子，说我活下去的可能性只有50%。
• The old man was a survival of a past age.这位老人是上一代的遗老。

3 survivor   

n.生存者，残存者，幸存者

参考例句：

• The sole survivor of the crash was an infant.这次撞车的惟一幸存者是一个婴儿。
• There was only one survivor of the plane crash.这次飞机失事中只有一名幸存者。

4 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

5 siblings   

n.兄弟，姐妹( sibling的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• A triplet sleeps amongst its two siblings. 一个三胞胎睡在其两个同胞之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She has no way of tracking the donor or her half-siblings down. 她没办法找到那个捐精者或她的兄弟姐妹。 来自时文部分

6 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句