Scholastic achievement of children with lymphoma or Wilms tumor at the end of comprehensive education--a nationwide, register-based study.

Cancer treatment may affect school performance. School report grades after childhood lymphomas and Wilms tumor have not been previously reported. All Finnish patients with Wilms tumor (N = 74), Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) (N = 99) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) (N = 94) who were born in 1974-1986 and had achieved the age of 16 years were identified from the Finnish cancer registry. Population controls (N = 1329) were matched for age, gender and residence. Their 9th grade school reports were obtained from Statistics Finland. The overall average and grades for mother tongue, first foreign language, mathematics and physical education were compared between the patients and their controls. Almost all the patients (>98%) had finished their comprehensive school. NHL patients had lower overall averages than their controls (difference -0.27 grade units; 95% CI -0.39, -0.15). Irradiation or age at diagnosis did not explain this difference in NHL patients. The grades of NHL patients were significantly lower than those of their controls in each academic school subject, especially in mathematics (-0.45; 95% CI -0.63, -0.27). In mother tongue, girls with irradiation had greatest difference (-0.66, 95% CI -0.99, -0.34) to their controls. Patients with HL and Wilms tumor performed similarly or even better than their controls in all academic subjects. Grades for physical education were impaired in Wilms tumor patients (-0.20; 95% CI -0.33, -0.06). Impairment of school report grades was observed in patients with NHL. The difference to controls was greatest in mathematics. The patients with HL and Wilms tumor, who had not received any central nervous system directed therapy, achieved equally good grades as their controls in all the academic subjects.