Second of Two Parts. Also See Part 1

Wendy Wolfson
Newswire21.org

Cancer can have a wide range of rippling after effects beyond the obvious.

Even when successfully treated, it can come back in another form decades later. It will affect your family life and relationships with friends. There can be lasting cognitive effects from treatment; called "chemo brain," it can affect the way you process or retain memories. 

And at what point do you dare to call yourself a "cancer survivor?"

If you or a loved one has had cancer, regular followup is essential, according to those who spoke at a recent National Press Foundation seminar, which was sponsored by Pfizer.

Hospitals are now establishing programs for cancer patients to steer them through the complexities of treatment, and also to address the complicated personal, psychological, social and financial aftereffects.

George Washington University, which has inaugurated a program to help cancer survivors navigate their treatment, will be putting on The First Annual Survivorship Symposium: Cancer Survivorship Research and in October 2009, with scholarships available through the Lance Armstrong Foundation.  

Lasting Impacts
Dr. Aziza Shad's cancer practice treats the psychological and social as well as the medical issues of childhood cancer. Shad, a professor of Neuro-Oncology at Georgetown's Lombardi Cancer Center, emphasized that physicians are finally starting to realize that children can have long-term aftereffects from cancer.

Depending on when and where they are treated, they can have lasting cognitive deficits and learning disabilities as well as physical problems that only show up years after treatment. The emotional effects are profound and lasting as well. Children can suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) from the trauma even years later. 

Shad discussed how important these medical initiatives are in the developing world as well. According to Shad, in developed countries like the US, most childhood cancers are treated successfully. In developing countries, almost all die. She is setting up childhood cancer programs in places like India, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia to improve treatment.

Supporting health and education initiatives can win hearts and minds in the developing world, Shad remarked. She noted that the Taliban and other extreme movements build support among the poor by offering basic education and health care services that governments do not.

A Parent's View
Karen Salton, whose son Jamey was diagnosed with leukemia a few years ago, talked about the challenges of getting her child through cancer treatment, which included steroids and chemotherapy.

According to Salton it's important to be proactive in doing things like setting up special academic help for children in advance, and fighting for anesthetics in painful procedures like spinal taps. Treatment disparities are common in the developed world as well.

Salton only lived a few miles away from Shad's program; but she didn't know it existed.

With the lingering threat of aftereffects, it's easy to understand why one journalist at the conference, a cancer survivor, said the two hardest days are the day you are diagnosed with cancer and the day you leave treatment.