Cancer Survivors' Quality Of Life Below The Norm
By Amy Norton
Government
researchers found that among nearly 7,300 adults in a national health survey, cancer
survivors reported a lower quality of life, more time lost from work and
greater health limitations than did other men and women the same age. The
difference was seen even among those who'd been diagnosed with cancer 11 or
more years earlier.
The persistence
of such health effects for so many years after cancer diagnosis
is an unexpected finding, lead study author Dr. K. Robin Yabroff
told Reuters Health.
The reason for
the long-lasting impact on health and quality of life is unclear, partially
because it's unknown how many of the long-term survivors had had cancer
recurrences, according to Yabroff, a researcher at
the National Cancer Institute in
It is also not
clear what type of treatment the survey respondents had undergone. Cancer
treatment, Yabroff noted,
can itself have lasting effects on well being. For example, compared with
treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy
for breast cancer has been linked to worse pain and poorer general health five
years after treatment. When it comes to prostate cancer, surgery may
cause persistent incontinence or impotence.
More research
is needed into the long-range effects of different cancer treatments and
different types of cancer, Yabroff and her colleagues
write in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The study
included 1,823 men and women who had been diagnosed with cancer at some point
in their lives. Compared with adults of the same age, gender and
education level, the cancer survivors reported poorer health and more lost work
days.
Overall, 31
percent of cancer survivors described their health as fair or poor, versus 18
percent of cancer-free adults.
Long-term
health effects were seen regardless of the type of cancer. Although
people diagnosed with lung cancer or tumors
with similarly poor survival rates reported poorer well-being than did
survivors of diseases such as breast, prostate and colon
cancers.
It is possible
that in patients with lung and other "short-survival" cancers the
disease may have been active -- and possibly spread throughout the body -- at
the time of the study, the researchers suggest.
According to
the authors, the number of cancer survivors in the
SOURCE: