HEALTHCancer survivors report poor quality of lifeAnother round of research will be necessary to determine why and what can be done to help these patients.By Susan J. Landers, amednews staff. Sept. 27, 2004. Washington -- Cancer survivors experience a poorer quality of life than do people who have never been diagnosed with cancer, according to a new study. The finding was true even for those who survived more than 10 years after their diagnosis. "I was surprised," said lead author Robin Yabroff, PhD, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute. "We have some follow-up studies in the pipeline to try to understand it a little bit better." The study was published in the Sept. 1 Journal of the National Cancer Institute. More and more people will likely be living with cancer in the near future as a result of earlier detection and more effective treatments. One million people in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and that number is expected to double by 2050 as the population increases and ages. The researchers studied data collected in the 2000 National Health Interview Survey, an annual survey that asks respondents questions about their lives and health. They analyzed responses from more than 1,800 cancer survivors and nearly 5,500 control subjects matched for age, gender and level of education. They found that cancer survivors were more likely to describe their health as poor or fair than were those who had never been diagnosed with cancer. Survivors were also more likely to report being unable to work because of their illness or to have lost more days of work due to illness during the previous year. The finding was true for all types of cancer and regardless of how many years had passed since the cancer was diagnosed. [...]Full text of American Medical News content is available to AMA members and paid subscribers.
Copyright 2004 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
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