Study cancer survivors

At the age of 16, Gregory Aune was not particularly concerned about the long-term effects of medications and radiation administered to treat her lymphoma. "I saw children dying around me, so I felt pretty lucky," he says. Nearly 30 years later, Aune has a slightly different perspective. He is always deeply grateful to have survived. But he also suffered from hypothyroidism, diabetes, and secondary skin cancer, as well as an open-heart operation and a stroke – all alleged to have been caused by the treatment that saved him.

This experience influenced Aune's research. Oncologist and cancer researcher at the Greehey Children's Cancer Research Institute at the University of Texas in San Antonio, he is studying the impact of cancer treatments on long-term health.

This is a subject that needs more attention. The dramatic improvements in cancer treatment are helping more people survive previously deadly diseases. In the United States, the number of cancer survivors is expected to increase from nearly 17 million to 26 million by 2040. The percentage of cancer survivors in the United States living at least 5 years after diagnosis is expected to increase by 35 percent. % between 2017 and 2027.

But the studies on the survivors have fallen behind. It is understandable that the focus is on finding new methods of controlling tumors, but efforts to identify, understand and mitigate the long-term effects of cancer treatments have been significantly reduced. The issue was discussed on March 31 at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Atlanta, Georgia.

An badysis published in January on how the US National Institutes of Health supported survival research reveals areas where improvements are possible (Rowland, J. et al. J. Natl Cancer Inst. 111109-117; 2019). On the one hand, the literature is small: only 215 studies were funded in 2016. Nearly half of them were suffering from bad cancer, which suggests that survivors of 39, other cancers deserve more attention. Only 14% specifically addressed the influence of ethnicity or badual orientation on the subject of the study, despite the key influence of these factors on survival at Cancer. And more than half were observations, although some researchers also want more focus on prevention and treatment of problems.

This is a field conducive to new discoveries. Clinical research is needed to understand the long-term effects of treatment, including a multitude of new drugs targeting the immune system. And further studies are needed on people aged 65 and over, a rapidly growing segment of the survivor population. This work would allow physicians and survivors to control dosing, manage symptoms, and more effectively detect early signs of complications.

A study by the American Society of Clinical Oncology found that many survival studies focus on emotional well-being or physical health, but few of them have deepened the biological details or the physical or mental health. influence of genetics (PB Jacobsen et al. J. Oncol. Pract. 12190-193; 2016). Yet such studies are important if we want to understand why some treatments have long-term effects.

Advances in cancer research have prolonged and saved lives. But for their benefits to be fully exploited, we must look beyond the time when people are released from their care. Researchers and funders should seize the opportunity to understand and treat the person, not just the tumor, and make a real difference in the lives of millions of cancer survivors.