Cancer Survivors Are Living Longer but Still Have Complex Needs. That's Why Doctors and Advocates Want Post-Treatment Care Plans

But many would benefit from specialized long-term medical care to manage the ongoing effects of the disease and its treatments. O2O Creative via Getty Images Nearly ten years after Kara Kenan of North Carolina finished treatment for advanced breast cancer, her routine bloodwork revealed an increased level of an enzyme called alkaline phosphatase. Kenan’s primary care doctor didn’t think that was important, so he ordered no further tests.

But Kenan, who directs marketing for the advocacy group Cancer Nation, knew better: That anomalous blood test could have been a sign that her cancer had spread to other tissues. She contacted her oncologist, who immediately ordered a computerized tomography (CT) scan. “And the CT revealed I had lesions on my liver,” she says.

Kenan is one of about 18.6 million cancer survivors in the United States—that’s more than 5 percent of the population. Almost all those patients need ongoing care, known as survivorship care, from clinicians who know the details of their cancer, their treatment and potential problems that can show up decades later. But most do not receive this care, in part because of a longstanding communication gap between the oncologists who treat cancer and other clinicians who take care of the patient.