Cancer Experts Issue First Guidelines For Survivors, Rare Cancer

Extract

For the first time, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has issued clinical guidelines for treating the nation’s growing number of cancer survivors, calling their needs a “neglected phase of cancer care.”

The network of cancer specialists also set the first guidelines for penile cancer, a rare cancer whose heterogeneous treatment across North America and elsewhere led to the decision to reemphasize the “gold standard” of care—partial or total penectomy, with wide negative surgical margins—for all but low-grade tumors and very early disease.

NCCN issued the new guidelines at its 18th annual conference on Advancing the Standard of Cancer Care March 13–17 in Hollywood, Fla.

The survivorship guidelines are meant to serve as a resource for “the vast and persistent impact” of cancer diagnosis and treatment on all adult cancer survivors, no matter which type of cancer, said Jennifer Ligibel, M.D., an oncologist at Dana–Farber/Brigham and Women’s Cancer Center and an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “A lot of data suggest that lifestyle factors are not being addressed,” she said, such as the need for regular exercise; counseling about diet and nutrition; or memory loss, pain, and sexual dysfunction resulting from cancer treatments.