Long-Term Fatigue in Cancer Survivors

摘要

Advances in cancer therapy have altered the course of several common cancers, and thus, the number of cancer survivors has increased dramatically. Most of these patients have been treated with multimodality programs that included surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. Many patients have derived benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy, once conducted primarily in the realm of breast cancer and now used to treat colorectal cancer, the third most commonly occurring cancer and the second most common cause of death from cancer, as well as lung and other cancers. Improvements in the treatment of metastatic disease have also dramatically affected the outcomes of many patients with cancer, resulting in an ever-increasing number of them receiving aggressive anticancer therapy and remaining free of disease years and even decades after completing treat-mejit. In many ways, we should consider these advances as signs of our success; however, for patients who suffer the long-term side effects associated with cancer therapy, this success might be tempered with some regret. Not surprisingly, in this context, the need to address the long-term side effects of cancer therapies has taken on a new urgency.