Survivorship

A new study has found that partners of colorectal cancer survivors experienced long-term financial toxicity that was associated with worse health-related quality of life due to systems- and individual-level behavioral factors.

New Orleans, LA—The number of cancer survivors is increasing. To keep up with this trend, survivorship care must evolve and become more efficient, insists Jennifer R. Klemp, PhD, MPH, MA, Director, Cancer Survivorship, University of Kansas Cancer Center, Westwood. A growing number of patients are living with or through their disease, while the provider workforce is shrinking.

Linking physicians and patients is a major undertaking, but given the ubiquity of smartphone technology and the rise in app development, the healthcare industry is poised to leverage advances in communication and information exchange. At the 2016 Cancer Survivorship Symposium, Steven J. Katz, MD, MPH, Professor of Medicine and Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, discussed the use of deliberation systems to enhance communication with survivors and their care.

“When we talk about multidisciplinary cancer care teams, I think it is important to discuss MDT [multidisciplinary team] clinical decision-making,” said Dr Jacobs. “How does the team really work together?”

At the 2016 Cancer Survivorship Symposium, Dr Ganz spoke with Value-Based Cancer Care (VBCC) about the importance of cancer rehabilitation, the politics of surveillance, and the greatest unmet needs facing survivors.

The job of the oncology medical team is to put out the fire, stop the emergency, and save the patient’s life, said Diane Heditsian, Researcher and Patient Advocate, Breast Oncology Program, University of California, San Francisco, during the 2016 Cancer Survivorship Symposium.

A new paradigm of survivorship care is needed that attempts to balance the patient’s total well-being against the often toxic treatment of the disease, suggests Deborah Korenstein, MD, Director of Clinical Effectiveness, Memorial Hospital, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NY. At the 2016 Cancer Survivorship Symposium, Dr Korenstein outlined a more personal approach to care: assessing the individual patient’s priorities and goals to balance long-term benefits and harms.

Survivorship medicine has never been in more demand, but questions regarding reimbursement remain. According to Jennifer Malin, MD, PhD, Medical Director, Oncology and Care Management, Anthem, if cancer survivorship models are to succeed, they will need to integrate into new healthcare delivery models, with less focus on cost and more on improving care coordination.

Sexual dysfunction is prevalent in women with breast cancer, a consequence of treatment that affects pre- and postmenopausal women. However, the safety and efficacy of available treatments remain understudied, according to Shari B. Goldfarb, MD, Medical Oncologist, Breast Medicine Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), NY.