Cancer Survivors Require Better Follow-Up, Study Says
11/7/2005 Washington, DC staff Wall Street Journal Online (online.wsj.com) The 10 million cancer survivors in the U.S. require customized follow-up for years that too few now receive, says a major study that calls for oncologists to create a "survivorship plan" to guide every patient's future health care. Half of all men and one-third of women in the U.S. will develop cancer in their lifetimes. Thanks to advances in early detection and treatment, the number who survive has more than tripled over the past three decades. When active treatment ends, these people's special needs may be just beginning, said the study, released Monday. Yet, the legacy of physical, psychological and social consequences has largely been ignored by doctors, researchers, even patient-advocacy groups, leaving survivors too often unaware of simmering health risks or struggling to manage them on their own, said the report by the Institute of Medicine. "Successful cancer care doesn't end when patients walk out the door after completion of their initial treatments," said Sheldon Greenfield of the University of California, Irvine, who led the study for the institute, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences. Yet, "you fall off a cliff when your treatment ends," said report co-author Ellen Stovall, president of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, who speaks from personal experience as a two-time survivor. Busy oncologists' priority is to treat patients and they may have little time for the survivor, while physicians who don't specialize in cancer care may not know what special needs survivors [...]