Basic Information for Health Care Professionals and Researchers
Nearly 15 million Americans who have been diagnosed with cancer are living in the United States. People are living longer after a cancer diagnosis because of advances in early detection and treatment. About two out of every
Basic Information for Health Care Professionals and Researchers
Nearly 15 million Americans who have been diagnosed with cancer are living in the United States. People are living longer after a cancer diagnosis because of advances in early detection and treatment. About two out of every three people who are diagnosed with cancer are expected to live at least five years after diagnosis. After completing treatment, survivors may encounter ongoing or future needs related to their cancer or its treatment.
Cancer survivors are at greater risk than people who have never had cancer for recurrence and for developing second cancers due to the effects of treatment, unhealthy behaviors, underlying genetics, or risk factors that contributed to the first cancer. Survivors also often face physical, emotional, psychosocial, spiritual, and financial challenges as a result of their cancer diagnosis and treatment.
To reduce the impact of this increasing burden of cancer, medical and public health professionals can address possible long-term and late effects of cancer and its treatment on survivors’ physical and psychosocial well-being, provide coordinated care, and promote healthy behaviors.
Survivorship Care Plans
Survivorship care plans are documents often delivered at the completion of cancer treatment that summarize a patient’s cancer and treatment history, potential long-term effects of cancer or its treatment, and recommended screening, surveillance, preventive care, and follow-up. The providers responsible for different aspects of care need to be specified in the care plan.
In response to the 2005 Institute of Medicine report, From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition, several expert organizations have recommended that patients and their primary care providers receive a treatment summary as part of a comprehensive survivorship care plan. However, implementation of these plans has been slow, largely because they can be very time-consuming to produce.
Templates and tools are being developed to help reduce barriers to delivering survivorship care plans to cancer survivors. For example, the Colorad