Cancer survivors are growing up but need better care Health

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Cancer survivors, who end their lives decades after recovering from the disease, need better medical care, according to a new US report.

The report, published by the National Cancer Institute in the United States, explains how treatment guidelines are developed and applied to cancer survivors as more and more people live decades after diagnosis.

In 2006, the National Academy of Medicine released a pivotal report on cancer survivors that motivated patients to take an interest in patient care. This report called for changing the way people think about it rather than focusing on oncology, demanding that lifelong health issues be reduced because of cancers Surgery, Treatment and Radiotherapy.

In a recent report, researchers said many of the recommendations made in the 2006 report had not been fully implemented, despite the progress made.

"One of the great successes is the awareness of the challenges post-treatment cancer survivors face, such as body toxicity or premature aging due to chemotherapy, the effects of surgical operations, and psychological stress." not to know if, "said Dr. Ron Klein, lead author of the report. The cancer will reappear and the material loads due to treatments that will sometimes last for long periods, perhaps indefinitely. "

"Recognizing these challenges is driving leaders on the ground to develop and test new models of care for survivors and challenge the quality of care they receive," he said.

The Klein report states that the National Academy of Medicine's report allowed health care providers to improve service delivery to help patients and their families understand the importance of post-treatment phase.

For example, the report recommends that patients receive health plans after their survival to help with periodic checks and treatments after the completion of the tumor itself, but it is not clear to what extent these plans are actually used or not. if they have improved the results.

Part of the problem, according to the new report, is that there are no clear criteria for assessing or improving the quality of health care provided to victims, as most quality measures are focused on oncology rather than helping victims adjust later to their lives.

The new report adds that physicians are not very committed to training health service providers to the recommendations of the Academy regarding survivor care, despite the development of professional and voluntary institutions to develop health care providers. training programs in this regard.