Patricia A. Ganz, MD

With the growing number of cancer survivors, there is increased interest in understanding and preventing post-treatment sequelae that may limit full recovery to prediagnosis health.

Breast cancer treatments today are likely to cause less physical deformity from surgery than a half-century ago, but are more complex and extend over a longer period of time. Women today are often well informed about the details of their cancer diagnosis and prognosis, and are increasingly involved in shared decision-making regarding treatment.

In their article, Armstrong and Hollandbriefly review many of thereasons why the practice of oncologyis likely to be stressful, includingthe factors that lead to burnoutor feelings of being overwhelmed.The article then goes on to focus onways to enhance communication inthe clinical setting as an important

Anecdotal reports of cognitive compromise among patients treated with chemotherapy are relatively common among breast cancer survivors and may play an important role in adversely affecting functioning in multiple domains. As noted by Dr. Olin,

Dr. Schover’s review of counseling strategies for cancer patients regarding changing sexual function reflects her many years as a clinical therapist and researcher in this area. Her article describes the common failure of clinicians to address the sexual health concerns of cancer patients, and provides a comprehensive approach to this problem for use in the oncology clinical setting.

Concerns over the rising costs of health care in the United States have recently focused attention on the young discipline of health services research.

Today, the US health-care system is being driven by a desire to contain escalating health-care expenditures. Oncology has not been spared, and the cancer burden on this country is great in terms of monetary costs as well as human morbidity and mortality.

This paper reviews the current status of translation of quality of life outcomes from research to clinical practice. A major barrier in this process is the lack of mature results from quality of life studies in phase III randomized controlled trials. As more trials are completed, we can expect the diffusion of those results into clinical practice and decision making. Further, as quality of life measurement tools are used more widely and become more user-friendly, we can anticipate their adoption in the routine clinical assessment of patients in the oncologist's practice. [ONCOLOGY 9(Suppl):61-65, 1995]