One of the most informative plenary sessions was titled Guidelines/
Implementing Survivorship Care. With the
number of cancer survivors estimated to be 14 million by the ACS the need to have guidelines for
implementing survivorship care plans is important. There are four main
guidelines each with a different audience.
LiveSTRONG recommends a process for care called Essential
Elements which can be used by everyone. http://www.livestrong.org/pdfs/3-0/Essential-Elements-Definitions_Recommendations
NCCN guidelines cover:
Anxiety and Depression
Cognitive Function
Exercise
Fatigue
Immunizations and Infections
Pain
Sexual Function (female/male)
Sleep
Disorders
This guideline is written for the
healthcare professional so a link for patients is unavailable.
ASCO published the first of its Survivorship Guidelines in
April of this year. They focus on Anxiety and Depression, Neuropathy, Fatigue
and Fertility Preservation and are meant for healthcare providers. They can be
found at http://www.asco.org/guidelines/survivorship
ACS
The audience for the ACS guidelines is the primary care
physician. The first guideline is for prostate cancer can be found at http://www.cancer.org/cancer/news/news/longterm-care-guidelines-for-prostate-cancer-survivors . Additional guidelines will be developed for breast, colon,
lung, cervical , ovarian , endometrial , uterine, head and neck and melanoma.
After learning about these guidelines we heard a discussion
of these plans by Julia Rowland, NCI and Doctors Ganz, Wender and Farber. They
raised points about the challenges of implementing survivorship plans, the
need to train PCPs regarding survivorship issues and the need for evidence based research to show whether or not patients with survivorship plans do in fact have better outcomes.
Dee
Every Day is a Blessing!
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