Initial treatment is just part of surviving cancer

      Suzanne Allard Levingston, Washington Post | March 30, 2016 9:51 AM ET
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Cancer patients used to be told to go home and take care of themselves without too many specifics for life after treatment. Now, as soon as they’re feeling strong enough, they’re advised to mind their lifestyle: lace up their sneakers, eat healthy, watch their weight and avoid tobacco and excess alcohol.

Roughly a third of cancers are considered preventable and the lifestyle recommended to help avoid them is the focus of ongoing research to help cancer survivors live healthier and, perhaps, longer.

Healthy behaviors may be especially important for someone who has had cancer. “They can not only be potentially helpful in preventing cancer from being there in the first place, but . . . they may be powerful tools in preventing recurrence,” said Jennifer Ligibel, a senior physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “We’re hoping that these types of things can improve survival rates in people who’ve had early cancers.”

Cancer survivors often need a tailored lifestyle program because side effects from their treatments can make it harder for them even to put on their shoes and go outside, Ligibel said.


About 14.5 million Americans are living with a history of cancer, and those ranks are expected to reach 19 million by 2024, according to the American Cancer Society. More than two-thirds of U.S. cancer survivors live five years beyond diagnosis, up from half in the 1970s and a third in the 1950s.

“We’re getting better at catching it earlier and treating it,” said Kathryn H. Schmitz, director of the exercise medicine unit at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

While advances in battling cancer have grabbed the spotlight, post-treatment life has gotten much less attention, as detailed more than a decade ago in an Institute of Medicine report called “From Cancer Patient to Cancer Survivor: Lost in Transition.” A patient who turns into a survivor faces many challenges: physical and psychological effects of treatment, including fatigue, numbness, pain and anxiety; and additional disease. Some effects can appear months or years later.


Survivors also live with the possibility of a recurrence or of developing a different form of cancer. Nearly 1 in 5 cancers are a second diagnosis, according to the National Cancer Institute.



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