Cancer survivorship: A positive side-effect of more successful cancer treatment

Abstract

Over the past decades, early diagnosis, new drugs and more personalised multi-modality treatment have led to impressive increases in survival rates of patients with cancer. This success in treating cancer has resulted in a large and rapidly increasing number of cancer survivors, yet life after cancer is often compromised by a broad spectrum of late adverse treatment effects. Some encounter cardiovascular, second malignancies, cognitive or other morbidities which impair normal life in an important way. Some patients are confronted with societal discrimination due to slower performance, chronic fatigue or partial inability and these things can adversely affect employment, education, insurance or mortgage opportunities. In 2012, the European Organisation of Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Survivorship Task Force was created to focus research efforts on late morbidity of cancer treatment and its impact on society. On 30-31st January 2014, the 1st EORTC Cancer Survivorship Summit was organised to facilitate interaction between clinicians, researchers, social workers, patients, insurers, bankers and policy makers. This important event addressed the needs of cancer survivors, and new collaborations between academic groups, patient advocates, financial and political representatives were formed to guide future European research and health policies in this field. This special issue of the European Journal of Cancer is entirely dedicated to this Summit and addresses, respectively, second malignancies, cardiovascular disease, cognitive dysfunction, infertility/sexuality and psycho-social problems following cancer treatment.

Keywords: Cancer; Cardio-toxicity; Cognitive dysfunction; EORTC; Infertility/sexuality; Late toxicity; Quality of life; Second malignancies; Survivorship.