This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Many pediatric oncologists unfamiliar with follow-up guidelines for childhood cancer survivors
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Pediatric oncologists had suboptimal knowledge of long-term follow-up for childhood cancer survivors, and were not comfortable caring for these patients as they aged, according to survey responses.
Researchers analyzed responses from 655 physician surveys from 170 institutions. Questions involved topics including familiarity with guidelines for surveillance and comfort level by patient age.
Overall, pediatric oncologists scored a 4.7 on a seven-point Likert scale when asked about their familiarity with monitoring guidelines for adolescent and young adult survivors.
They reported being most comfortable when caring for survivors aged younger than 21 years, less comfortable caring for survivors aged older than 21 years and uncomfortable caring for survivors aged 30 years and older.
“These data speak to the difficult issues of the appropriate transition from pediatric to adult care in this population,” researchers wrote.
Respondents were presented with a vignette that described a woman aged 29 years who was treated with mantle radiation and anthracycline chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s lymphoma when aged 16. Based on Children’s Oncology Group guidelines for long-term follow-up, 34% did not recommend yearly breast cancer surveillance, 43% did not recommend cardiac surveillance every other year and 24% did not recommend yearly thyroid surveillance. Overall, 33% answered these questions appropriately.
In multivariate analysis, answering the three questions correctly were associated with better familiarity with the long-term follow-up guidelines (OR=1.33; 95% CI, 1.15-1.54) and having had training in childhood cancer survivor care (OR=1.73; 95% CI, 1.18-2.52).
“Findings from this study should provide a foundation for additional research and possible targeted interventions that hope to improve physician knowledge and comfort in caring for this growing and at-risk population,” researchers said.
Henderson TO. J Clin Oncol. 2010;doi:10.1200/JCO.2009.25.6107.
More In the Journals summaries>>
