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In March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the “Cancer Survivors— United States, 2007” report.

The number of women with a personal history of breast cancer is increasing, and these women have a long-term risk of developing a new or recurrent cancer in the conserved breast or a new cancer in the contralateral breast. Consensus-based recommendations for surveillance of breast cancer survivors include annual mammography; however, high-quality evidence is lacking on outcomes of mammography screening in these women.

On behalf of our editorial board, it is my pleasure to present this issue of Journal of Oncology Navigation & Survivorship (JONS) to you, our reading community.

Breast cancer accounts for 1 in every 3 cancers diagnosed in American women today. About 155,000 women are living with metastatic breast cancer in the United States, and this number is expected to increase to 162,000 in 2011.

Cancer survivors are living longer and, with more than one-third of the American population experiencing a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime, it is critical to focus attention on the long-term needs of survivors.

Outcomes from the roundtable held in conjunction with the George Washington Cancer Institute Cancer Survivorship Research and Health Disparities Symposium have far-reaching implications that will impact clinical practice and how we, as clinicians, address cancer survivorship care in the future.

Patients coping with the stresses of cancer can experience depressive symptoms, with an estimated 22% to 29% of newly diagnosed patients experiencing major depressive disorder (MDD; Raison CL, Miller AH. Biol Psychiatry. 2003;54:283-294).

Most studies on survivorship and employment have focused on older patients, have not followed patients more than 2 years after diagnosis, or have been limited to one disease site. To extend knowledge on work patterns of survivors, Moran and colleagues studied prime-age (28-54 years) male and female survivors of all types of cancers.

With 12 million cancer survivors in the United States and looming shortages of oncologists and PCPs [primary care physicians], the needs of cancer survivors can fall through the cracks,” stated Katherine S. Virgo, PhD, MBA, director of health services research at the American Cancer Society, during a presentation at the 2011 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

On behalf of the Academy of Oncology Nurse Navigators (AONN) leadership council, I am excited to introduce the Journal of Oncology Navigation & Survivorship (JONS), a publication designed to meet the needs of oncology nurse and patient navigators.