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A range of research

For all the advances made in recent years, much remains to be done to document the long-term physical, social, and psychological consequences of cancer treatments. Perhaps because of its late start, survivorship research remains a fairly wide-open and uncrowded field. Here is a sampling of work under way at Dana-Farber, some of it in conjunction with colleagues locally and nationally:

  • A long-running study on Hodgkin's disease survivors' risk of heart disease; Lead investigator: Peter Mauch, MD, also of BWH.
  • An exploratory study of the impact of exercise on insulin and other hormones that may be involved in breast cancer recurrence; Jennifer Ligibel, MD.
  • A look at patients' quality of life following treatment for Hodgkin's lymphoma; Kristin Roper, RN, MSN, ONC.
  • An investigation of the risk factors associated with subsequent sarcomas in a large group of childhood cancer survivors; Tara Henderson, MD.
  • An evaluation of how informed Hodgkin's disease survivors are about their risk for breast cancer; Sharon Bober, PhD.
  • A program to assess the quality of life for pediatric brain tumor survivors, and to test strategies for helping them cope; Christopher Turner, MD.
  • Studies of cardiac health in survivors of childhood leukemia; Stephen E. Sallan, MD, Lewis Silverman, MD.
  • A comparison of mammography and magnetic resonance imaging's ability to detect breast cancers in women who received radiation therapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma; Andrea Ng, MD, also of BWH.
  • A first-of-its-kind study of survivors, cancer physicians, and primarycare doctors to get a picture of different specialists' roles in survivors' follow-up care; Craig Earle, MD.

"The growth in awareness of survivors' issues, and of the need to examine them systematically, is long overdue," says Earle, medical director of the Lance Armstrong Foundation Adult Survivorship Clinic at Dana-Farber. "There's been a change in the zeitgeist. Where the attitude once was, 'Patients are thrilled to survive their cancer, and what happens afterward is beyond our focus as oncologists,' there's now a wide recognition that our concern extends long after patients finish therapy."

Fall / Winter 2005, Paths of Progress
Paths of Progress Archive

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