Long-Term Cancer Survivors Fare as Well as or Better than Everyone Else, AJMC® Study Finds
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Led by researchers from Precision Health Economics, the study found that those who survived cancer at least four years had health and well-being measures that were as good as or better than those of the general population and those with a chronic disease.
"Our study results are striking, given concerns that patients with cancer may experience a low quality of life," the researchers wrote. "Although we do find that quality of life is reduced in the short term, we find that it solidly rebounds in the years after diagnosis, becoming comparable with or even better than that of others of similar age and demographic characteristics."
The study was the first to compare health and well-being measures for long-term cancer survivors with those of patients recently diagnosed with cancer. The findings are important as cancer death rates have dropped 23 percent between 1990 and 2012, according to the
Researchers examined data from four cohorts who took part in the Health and Retirement Study between 2004 and 2014: those recently diagnosed with cancer (defined as less than four years ago), those who had survived cancer at least four years, those with a chronic illness (such as diabetes, hypertension, previous stroke, or heart or lung disease), and a representative sample.
Health and quality-of-life outcomes for long-term cancer survivors were better than those for patients recently diagnosed with cancer and those with chronic illness. When comparing these outcomes between long-term cancer survivors and the general population, the results depended on whether researchers controlled for the number of comorbidities. Controlling for comorbidity count, the long-term cancer survivors had health and quality-of-life outcomes similar to or better than the general population. Not controlling for comorbidity count, long-term cancer survivors showed moderately higher healthcare utilization and spending and moderately lower self-reported health and employment. According to the authors, these results suggest that the well-being of long-term cancer survivors is greatly affected by whether they have other health problems.
Based on their findings, the researchers saw value in helping patients with cancer get well. "It makes interventions offering patients with cancer a chance of long-term survival more valuable," they wrote.
Keywords for this news article include: Cancer, Oncology, Epidemiology, Quality of Life, Health and Medicine, Diagnostics and Screening, The American Journal of Managed Care®.
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