Addressing the needs of cancer survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic
- PDF / 234,523 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 76 Downloads / 139 Views
EDITORIAL
Addressing the needs of cancer survivors during the COVID-19 pandemic Larissa Nekhlyudov 1 & Saskia Duijts 2,3 & Shawna V. Hudson 4,5 & Jennifer M. Jones 6,7 & Justin Keogh 8 & Brad Love 9 & Maryam Lustberg 10 & Katherine Clegg Smith 11 & Amye Tevaarwerk 12,13 & Xinhua Yu 14 & Michael Feuerstein 15
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Introduction The recent COVID-19 pandemic has affected the world and has the potential to disproportionately affect and disrupt the lives of cancer survivors, including those currently in treatment, those who have completed treatment, and those who are now living cancer-free. There are currently over 17 million cancer survivors in the USA [1] and millions more around the world [2, 3]. Much has been published over the past several decades about the late and long-term effects of cancer treatment, alongside both the challenges and potential solutions to help patients navigate the healthcare system in order to receive high-quality survivorship care [4, 5]. To date, a number of organizations have provided the cancer survivorship community (both patients and healthcare providers) recommendations pertaining to COVID-19 (Box 1). Unfortunately, at this time, there is limited evidence regarding the impact of COVID-19 on cancer survivors, particularly those who have completed treatment. As the pandemic continues to evolve and scientific evidence emerges, more directed recommendations and guidelines will follow. As editors of the Journal of Cancer Survivorship, the only international peer-reviewed
* Larissa Nekhlyudov [email protected]
publication dedicated to expanding and disseminating knowledge pertaining directly to this patient population, we wrote this commentary to describe how COVID-19 may impact the physical, psychosocial, and healthcare delivery concerns of cancer survivors. We hope that this information may be helpful in addressing the needs of cancer survivors at the present time and frame the issues that will warrant attention in the future.
Physical and psychosocial issues Based on available data, COVID-19 appears to affect people of all ages; however, those who are older and have preexisting medical conditions, including cancer, may be at higher risk for serious medical complications [6, 7]. Whether we consider the more than two-thirds of cancer survivors who are aged 65 and older with pre-existing conditions, those with history of childhood and adolescent/young adult-onset cancer with ongoing late and long-term effects, those who completed bone marrow transplantation, those who remain immunosuppressed post treatment, or those who continue to receive
Maryam Lustberg [email protected]
Saskia Duijts [email protected]
Katherine Clegg Smith [email protected]
Shawna V. Hudson [email protected]
Amye Tevaarwerk [email protected]
Jennifer M. Jones [email protected]
Xinhua Yu [email protected]
Justin Keogh [email protected] Brad Love [email protected]
Michael Feuerstein [email protected]
Data Loading...
