Cancer chronicity: new research and policy challenges

Cancer centers are organized to serve the needs of patients who can benefit from medical and surgical interventions aimed at curing cancer and preventing recurrence. However, comprehensive cancer care must also encompass the needs of patients with incurable but treatable cancers, some of which can potentially be managed as chronic diseases through outpatient care and self-management. Treating cancer as a chronic disease, and helping patients to live with cancer as a chronic disease, calls for health care that complements services that exist for patients with curable disease, for patients who have completed treatment, and for patients whose disease no longer responds to treatment. Research should focus on the chronic cancer patients to understand how cancer treatment can better serve this growing patient population.