Long-term problems persist for many cancer survivors

Many cancer survivors face physical and mental challenges resulting from their disease and its treatment, even decades after being cured, a new study has found.
The findings could help clinicians and other experts develop interventions that are tailored to the specific types of problems and concerns that cancer survivors may experience.
While many survivors do well after treatment, some experience continuing problems that can significantly impair their quality of life well beyond the magical 5-year survival milestone, researchers said.
These problems and challenges can vary by the type of cancer patients had and the treatments they received.
To assess the unmet needs of cancer survivors, Mary Ann Burg, of the University of Central Florida in Orlando, and her colleagues looked at the responses from an American Cancer Society survey on 1,514 cancer survivors.

"This study was unique in that it gave a very large sample of cancer survivors a real voice to express their needs and concerns," said Burg.

Survivors most frequently expressed physical problems, with 38 per cent saying they were an issue.
Financial problems related to the costs of treatment also persisted long after treatment for 20 per cent of respondents, with Black and Hispanic survivors being especially hard-hit.
Anxiety about recurrence was a common theme expressed by survivors regardless of the type of cancer they had or how many years they had survived cancer. The number and type of unmet needs were not associated with time since cancer treatment.

"Overall, we found that cancer survivors are often caught off guard by the lingering problems they experience after cancer treatment.
"In the wake of cancer, many survivors feel they have lost a sense of personal control, have reduced quality of life, and are frustrated that these problems are not sufficiently addressed within the medical care system," said Burg.
The study was published in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.