Cancer Survivorship (PDF)

A diagnosis of cancer provokes myriad responses in patients, chief among them the question: "how long do I have to live?" Increasingly, the answer to that question is not one of months or years, but decades. While there are now nearly 10 million people in the United States who have recovered or are currently recovering from cancer (increased from three million in 1971), the unique challenges encountered by survivors are often met with uncertainity by even the most seasoned physicians, nurses, and clinical social workers because of a lack of formal guidelines for post-treatment care and follow-up.

Cancer Survivorship: Today and Tomorrow provides much-needed information on how to best serve this community of patients. Written by experts in the field, many of the them cancer survivors themselves, each chapter leads the reader through the unique medical and psychosocial aspects of recovery and survivorship in many primary sites including Childhood Cancers, Hodgkin's Disease, Testicular, Gynecological, Breast, Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Transplant (AML,ALL, Lymphoma). Additional chapters cover survailence, second malignancies, psychosocial rehabilitation, employment and job discrimination, sexual and reproductive dysfunction, and advocacy. Cancer Survivorship is designed to be a complete resource for all members of the patient care team, providing a strong basis for the ongoing treatment of cancer survivors.

From the foreword... "Dr. Ganz and many of the contributors to this comprehensive text pioneered cancer survivorship, and they must justifiably be proud that their advocacy and commitment to survivor care and research have resulted in in-depth reports by the President's Cancer Panel, several Institute of Medicine studies, and this timely text. Cancer Survivorship: Today and Tomorrow is a natural evolution of these efforts, inclusive of the major areas of survivor care: surveillance for recurrence and second cancers, management of late effects, coordination of ongoing health maintenance and prevention, and the important psychosocial elements integral to the healing process after cancer treatment. Care of an entire generation of cancer survivors is needed and will be facilitated by the organization of this volume according to specific diseases, patient groups and cross-cutting topics."