title: Educational level of childhood brain tumor survivors: results from a German survey.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Among adult survivors of childhood brain tumors in Germany, we assessed their educational level and examined potentially influencing factors.
  
  
  METHODS
  A questionnaire was sent to 505 childhood brain tumor survivors listed in the German Childhood Cancer Registry. 203/505 (40.2%) patients with treatment and educational data were included in the analysis.Of the included brain tumor survivors 54.7% (111/203) were male, the median age was 11.0 (1-15) years at diagnosis and 22.0 (19-37) years at the time of the survey. 34.8% (95%-CI 25.1-44.5) of female and 34.9% (26.0-43.8) of male survivors achieved a high school diploma. Survivors who had received irradiation had less likely obtained a high school diploma compared to those without irradiation. However, this association was statistically not significant: for either craniospinal or tumor irradiation adjusted odds ratio was 0.54 (0.08-3.76); for those with a combination of craniospinal and tumor irradiation 0.51 (0.07-3.59). Participants aged 6-10 years at diagnosis achieved a higher educational level 2.24 (0.45-11.25) compared to younger patients.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A third of the childhood brain tumor survivors who participated in our survey obtained the highest school leaving certificate. This may be biased by an overrepresentation of well-educated survivors without major cancer-related late effects. The influence of the patients' strong motivation following a severe illness combined with the intensive psychosocial and/or pedagogical support on education needs to be examined in future studies.
authors.affiliation: Paediatric Oncology/Haematology, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pfitzer
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Zynda
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hohmann
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Keil
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Borgmann-Staudt
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016371:Cranial Irradiation / Q000009:adverse effects; D004519:Education, Special; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011379:Prognosis; D017741:Survivors / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult