Cancer survivors

Cancer survivorship is becoming a newly defined entity. Cancer therapies can produce many late physical effects by adversely affecting every organ system. Psychosocial issues that have been studied include: psychiatric, self-concept, school performance, and behavioral adjustment, employment and insurance discrimination, and marital status. Quality-of-life assessments in adult survivors is comparable to controls but is diminished for children with disease or treatments that affect the CNS. The greatest fear for cancer survivors is the 10 to 20 times greater risk of SMN as compared with persons with no history of cancer. Infertility and sexual dysfunction are real concerns for survivors that usually go unexpressed. Some cancers have a familial predisposition; however, treatments do not appear to increase the risk of birth defects or childhood cancers in the offspring. Lower socioeconomic status adversely affects cancer survival because of lost opportunities for cancer screening, other diseases, and untreated cancer. The primary care physician can competently care for cancer survivors and should emphasize health promotion and risk prevention behaviors, topics especially applicable for this patient population.