Startlingly few childhood cancer survivors receive recommended screenings

Startlingly few childhood cancer survivors receive recommended screenings

Lack of clinician, survivor awareness may be part of the issue, expert says

IN THE NEWS: A recent study led by UC Irvine cancer researcher Joel Milam, PhD, found that less than 40% of childhood cancer survivors undergo recommended screenings for late effects of treatment.

Milam, co-leader of the Cancer Control Program at the UCI Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, spoke to Healio about the study and the factors behind its findings.

"We could look at whether they were screened for cardiac, thyroid or breast late effects. These are three unique subgroups who need to be getting these follow-ups earlier in life. We didn't know what to expect. We suspected adherence would be low, but we didn't think it would be lower than 40%, which it was for all three groups."

A lack of awareness of survivorship guidelines on the part of both the patient and clinician could be part of the issue, he says.

"If the survivor is not aware of them and their provider is not aware of them, they likely are not getting the surveillance they need. This is where survivorship clinics come in. They actually look at the treatment received and make sure the patient is getting guideline-concordant care. We have set up informal networks where the clinician has a list of providers who are aware of these guidelines, and they try to refer their survivors out to these providers."

Milam is a professor at the UC Irvine School of Medicine and the Joe C. Wen School of Population & Public Health. He is also the co-director and co-founder of the Center for Young Adult Cancer Survivorship Research. Milam is an expert in understanding barriers to follow-up care and improving health outcomes among pediatric, adolescent, and young adult cancer survivors, with an emphasis on Latino survivors.

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