Living Life beyond Cancer: ASCO’s Focus on Survivorship

On June 5, National Cancer Survivors Day participants united to celebrate living beyond cancer and focus on the issues facing cancer survivors, an area in which ASCO is increasing its efforts.

ASCO recently developed a new committee focused on survivorship to tackle issues related to cancer survivors and address the needs and concerns of this patient population. With nearly 12 million cancer survivors in the United States alone, ASCO stands ready to lead the cancer community in addressing the needs and concerns of this group. ASCO has a long history of supporting policies to assist cancer survivors as part of its overall commitment to ensuring high-quality care for all patients with cancer and will continue this work through the survivorship committee.

The Cancer Survivorship Committee held its first meeting earlier this year and developed four primary goals, on which members will focus over the next year:

identify the best practices of clinical management of cancer survivors and provide guidelines on common health risks

collaborate with pediatric and medical oncology cooperative groups to establish uniform minimum sets of data related to survivorship for collection as patients are entering treatment

examine models of survivorship care and consider how to best transition and share care between oncology practices and primary care providers

improve the effectiveness and uptake of treatment plans and treatment summaries to help transition survivorship information between providers

ASCO has a host of resources available for cancer survivors on its patient website, www.cancer.net/survivorship. For updates on ASCO’s survivorship work, visit www.asco.org/ascoaction. ■