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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Physicians and psychologists from the university hospitals of Leipzig and Dresden, as well as from the NCT/UCC Dresden, analyzed more than 13,000 publications on this subject. From these, the researchers extracted 32 recommendations for long-term, efficient, and tailored follow-up care for young patients.
The cure rates for adolescents and young adults (aged 15 to 39) with cancer are high. However, the intensive therapies required to achieve a cure carry the risk of long-term side effects for those affected. Due to the variety of diagnoses and therapies, there is currently little data on which individual follow-up care is relevant to young adults for ensuring their long-term physical and mental health and quality of life. A review now compiled by an interdisciplinary team led by physicians and psychologists from the University Hospitals of Leipzig and Dresden and the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT/UCC) Dresden, analyzes over 13,000 publications covering this topic. From this, scientists extracted 32 recommendations for long-term, efficient, and tailored follow-up care for young patients.
While individualized follow-up care for patients is already well established in the field of pediatric oncology, there is still no systematically compiled overview of the long-term effects of cancer treatment in adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer. The recently published review aims to close this knowledge gap. The impetus came from the consortium behind the LE-Na review, which has been running since 2023 and focuses on the expansion, evaluation, and implementation of Germany-wide long-term follow-up care structures for children and adolescents who had cancer.
“This literature review was conducted by an interdisciplinary team of oncologists, psychologists, a pulmonologist, and a gynecologist. It is intended as a guide for practicing oncologists and general practitioners. It can also serve as a basis for further clinical trials in this under-researched area,“ explains lead author Dr. Katharina Egger-Heidrich, specialist in internal medicine, hematology, and oncology, and head of internal medicine at the outpatient transition clinic at Dresden University Hospital. “Tailored long-term follow-up care is designed to maintain the health and quality of life of former patients in the long term. We can avoid unnecessary examinations and detect possible secondary diseases at an early stage. Especially young patients often suffer from psychological stress after recovery from cancer. We need to take this into account in our treatment,” she adds.
At the Dresden site, services for young cancer patients are constantly being developed. For example, young patients between the ages of 16 and 28 who are treated at the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT/UCC) in Dresden are assigned an AYA Guide in their age group, who can also organize contacts with other young people with cancer. This dialogue is often difficult in everyday hospital life, as the number of patients in this age group is relatively small and they are either accommodated in the children's ward with much younger patients or in the adult ward with older people.
“Our ultimate goal is to open our own AYA ward where young patients aged 15 and older can be treated together. This will allow them to benefit from the cutting-edge medical care available at the center while also receiving optimal psychological and social support,” says Katharina Egger-Heidrich.
The outpatient transition clinic, a collaboration between the Clinic for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Medical Clinic I, and the Sonnenstrahl association, already serves as a point of contact for cancer patients who reach adulthood during their treatment as well as for all adolescents and young adults who require individual follow-up care after completing their treatment. Here, young patients are supported in managing the structured transition from pediatric oncology treatment to adult medicine and in actively shaping their own follow-up care. “Through holistic outpatient follow-up care, we want to identify long-term side effects and relapses as quickly as possible so that we can take effective action,” says Dr. Judith Lohse, pediatric director of the outpatient transition clinic.
Contact:
Anne-Stephanie Vetter
Staff Unit Public Relations of Carl Gustav Carus Faculty of Medicine
at TUD Dresden University of Technology
National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT/UCC) Dresden
Tel.: +49 351 458 17903
Email: anne-stephanie.vetter@tu-dresden.de
www.tu-dresden.de/med
Dr. Katharina Egger-Heidrich
katharina.egger-heidrich@ukdd.de
Medical Clinic I, Department of Hematology, Cell Therapy, and Medical Oncology
Carl Gustav Carus University Hospital Dresden
Prof. Judith Gebauer
Judith.Gebauer@medizin.uni-leipzig.de
Professor of Cancer Survivorship
Clinic for Oncology, Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Pneumology
Leipzig University Hospital
Dr. Diana Richter
Diana.Richter@medizin.uni-leipzig.de
Department of Medical Psychology and Medical Sociology
Leipzig University Hospital
Cancer treatment review “Long-term surveillance recommendations for young adult cancer survivors”
Katharina Egger-Heidrich, Franziska Wolters, Mareike Frick, Teresa Halbsguth, Theresa Müller, Hannah Woopen, Kristin Tausche, Diana Richter, Judith Gebauer.
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305737225001148#m0010
https://nct-dresden.de. The NCT/UCC Dresden is a joint institution of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), the University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, the Faculty of Medicine of the Technische Universität Dresden, and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR). Patients are regarded as equal partners in research.
AYA-Team: Theresa Müller, Dr. Judith Lohse, Dr. Katharina Egger-Heidrich.
Source: Michael Kretzschmar
Copyright: Universitätsklinikum Dresden
Criteria of this press release:
Journalists, Scientists and scholars
Medicine, Nutrition / healthcare / nursing, Psychology
transregional, national
Research results, Scientific Publications
English
AYA-Team: Theresa Müller, Dr. Judith Lohse, Dr. Katharina Egger-Heidrich.
Source: Michael Kretzschmar
Copyright: Universitätsklinikum Dresden
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