Recent Articles
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, cancer centers rapidly adopted telehealth to deliver care remotely. Telehealth will likely remain a model of care for years to come and may not only affect the way oncologists deliver care to their own patients but also the physicians with whom they share patients.
A steady increase in colorectal and prostate cancer survivors and patients with these cancers is expected in the upcoming years. As a result of primary cancer treatments, patients have numerous additional complaints, increasing the need for cancer aftercare. However, referrals to appropriate cancer aftercare remain inadequate, despite a wide range of aftercare options. Caregivers and patients often do not know which aftercare is the most appropriate for the individual patient. Since characteristics and complaints of patients within a diagnosis group may differ, predefined patient clusters could provide substantive and efficient support for professionals in the conversation about aftercare. By using advanced data analysis methods, clusters of patients who are different from one another within a diagnosis group can be identified.
Telehealth visits increase patients’ access to care and are often rated as “just as good” as face-to-face visits by oncology patients. Telehealth visits have become increasingly more common in the care of patients with cancer since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. Asians and Pacific Islanders are two of the fastest growing racial groups in the United States, but there are few studies assessing patient satisfaction with telemedicine among these two racial groups.
Acknowledging the popularity of TikTok, how quickly medical information can spread, and how users seek support on social media, there is a clear lack of research on breast cancer conversations on TikTok. There is a paucity of information on how these videos can advocate for those impacted by breast cancer as a means to provide support and information as well as raise awareness.
The needs of patients with cancer must be met, especially in times of crisis. The advent of the pandemic triggered a series of strategic actions by the nursing team to preserve the health of patients and professionals—hence the importance of studies on nursing care actions provided to patients with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is known that these patients are susceptible to severe COVID-19. However, no previous review has summarized the findings of scientific studies on nursing for COVID-19 in patients with cancer.
To address the unmet need for a commercial cancer-specific meditation app, we leveraged a long-standing partnership with a consumer-based app (ie, Calm) to develop the first commercial meditation app prototype adapted specifically for the needs of patients with cancer. Input was obtained at both the individual user and clinic levels (ie, patients with and survivors of cancer and health care providers).
Although the treatment for breast cancer is highly personalized, posttreatment surveillance remains one-size-fits-all: annual imaging and physical examination for at least five years after treatment. The INFLUENCE nomogram is a prognostic model for estimating the 5-year risk for locoregional recurrences and second primary tumors after breast cancer. The use of personalized outcome data (such as risks for recurrences) can enrich the process of shared decision-making (SDM) for personalized surveillance after breast cancer.
Distress is common immediately after diagnosis of testicular cancer. It has historically been difficult to engage people in care models to alleviate distress because of complex factors, including differential coping strategies and influences of social gender norms. Existing support specifically focuses on long-term survivors of testicular cancer, leaving an unmet need for age-appropriate and sex-sensitized support for individuals with distress shortly after diagnosis.
Men with prostate cancer experience immediate and long-term consequences of the disease and its treatment. They require both long-term monitoring for recurrence or progression and follow-up to identify and help manage psychosocial and physical impacts. Holistic Needs Assessment aims to ensure patient-centered continuing cancer care. However, paper-based generic tools have had limited uptake within cancer services, and there is little evidence of their impact. With the expansion of remote methods of care delivery and to enhance the value of generic tools, we developed a web-based Composite Holistic Needs Assessment Adaptive Tool-Prostate (CHAT-P) specifically for prostate cancer.
Prior studies, generally conducted at single centers with small sample sizes, found that individuals with cancer experience more severe outcomes due to COVID-19, caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. Although early examinations revealed greater risk of severe outcomes for patients with cancer, the magnitude of the increased risk remains unclear. Furthermore, prior studies were not typically performed using population-level data, especially those in the United States. Given robust prevention measures (eg, vaccines) are available for populations, examining the increased risk of patients with cancer due to SARS-CoV-2 infection using robust population-level analyses of electronic medical records is warranted.
