By Curt Pesmen on Nov. 2, 2012
Fight Colorectal Cancer warmly welcomes Curt Pesmen, founding editor of LIVESTRONG Quarterly magazine and author of The Colon Cancer Survivors’ Guide (Tatra Press), who also has written for Esquire, SELF and The New York Times. A long-time admirer of Kate Murphy, he has generously offered to help fill her shoes by sending in Research & Treatment News blogs.
At first, it may not make total sense to hear news—released Oct. 30 in an American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) journal—that colorectal cancer survivors tend to have less-positive outlooks and poorer quality of life reports than do breast cancer, melanoma, or other cancer survivors.
But those are the findings fanning out among oncologists, researchers, and patients, in the wake of the recent report (funded by the National Cancer Institute) that studied more than 1,800 cancer survivors and more than 24,000 people who had never received a cancer diagnosis. The extensive study also found that:
• Melanoma, breast and prostate cancer survivors reported quality of life similar to adults without cancer.
• Cervical, blood, colorectal, and short-survival cancer survivors reported worse health compared to adults without cancer.
• The researchers estimated 3.3 million American cancer survivors have “poor” physical health and that 1.4 million survivors have below-average mental health-related quality of life.
(You can find highlights of the study here.)
The study author reflected on the study’s findings, particularly concerning colorectal cancer survivors. Read the rest of this entry »
Get help managing the financial costs of your cancer care from an ASCO booklet or figure out how to deal with the Medicare prescription doughnut hole using an AARP online calculator.
