Survivorship
Fertility and early menopause after cancer can pose
challenging emotional and medical issues for patients
and their clinicians. Survivors who become
infertile because of their cancer treatment are at an increased
risk for emotional distress and are often affected
by unresolved grief and depression, according to Ann H.
Partridge, MD, MPH, Medical Oncologist, Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute, Boston.
With navigation and certification, the multitude of terms such as nurse navigator, patient navigator, lay navigator, and even GPS nurse can lead to confusion. The Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators is working to develop certification plans that are tailored to oncology nurse navigators. Cancer survivors are often confused too, for different reasons: they may have a difficult time remembering all the details of their cancer treatment. Survivorship care plans may be able to help.
With the increasing number of cancer survivors and their complex needs, new models of care are needed to aid patients in their transition to survivorship care. An individualized treatment summary and survivorship care plan can help patients and healthcare providers smoothly transition to survivorship care in a community-based setting.
We conducted a survey of patients who were identified from the Baystate Medical Center tumor registry who presented with breast cancer between 1997 and 2007. The women had ongoing follow-up with a medical oncologist or with a breast cancer survivorship clinic with guideline-based surveillance but no survivorship care plan (SCP) and were initially treated by the present investigators. After confirmation of study eligibility (stage I-III disease, no distant relapse, age >18 years, able to complete questionnaires, and 1-10 years since diagnosis), an invitation-to-participate letter was sent by each patient’s physician.
This issue of JONS provides a preview of the posters that will be on display and presented at the Sixth Annual AONN+ Conference, October 1-4, 2015, in Atlanta. Below is a selection of conference abstracts. Look for more abstracts in the coming weeks.
Lillie praises the Journal of Oncology Navigation & Survivorship (JONS) for its wealth of information from a variety of experts in the field. The publication provides all-encompassing information for navigators and is one of the only publications that talks about survivorship.
Advances in cancer treatment have led to a growing number of survivors, with 14.5 million survivors in 2014 and a projection of 19 million survivors by 2124. Survivorship care planning is now considered a quality metric, and survivorship care plans are a component of accreditation by the Commission on Cancer (CoC). Originally, the CoC stipulated that survivorship plans must be phased in by 2015; however, that date has been pushed to 2019, because this has been difficult to accomplish.
As a 7-year breast cancer survivor, my primary feeling most of the time is awe and gratitude that I’m still here. I can savor life’s small moments and big events, from sipping a piping hot tall dark roast to celebrating my dear friend’s 50th by dancing my you-know-what off!
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