Follow-up after breast cancer

doi:10.1136/bmj.39421.440799.BE

BMJ 2008;336:107-108 (19 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.39421.440799.BE

Editorials

Follow-up after breast cancer

Should be evidence based, flexible, and tailored to patients’lifelong needs

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

More than 1.2 million women and men worldwide are diagnosedwith breast cancer each year. In 2007, the 20 year survivalrate for breast cancer will be greater than the five year survivalrate 30 years ago.¹ Breast cancer is now recognised as a chronicdisease that can recur even after 20-30 years. Follow-up protocolsvary widely—both within and between countries—andare not always evidence based. The challenge is to develop follow-upprogrammes that reflect current knowledge and meet the ongoingneeds of this growing number of people.

Guidelines from the National Institute for Health and ClinicalExcellence (NICE) in England and Wales state that the aims ofbreast cancer follow-up are to detect and treat local recurrence,to deal with adverse effects of treatment, and to provide psychologicalsupport.² Routine surveillance for metastatic disease is notrecommended because data from randomised studies have shownno improvement in outcomes for . . . [Full text of this article]

J M Dixon, consultant surgeon and senior lecturer in surgery; clinical director, Edinburgh breakthrough research unit¹, David Montgomery, clinical research fellow²

¹ Edinburgh Breast Unit, Western General Hospital, Edinburgh EH4 2XU, ² Department of Surgery, Glasgow Royal Infirmary, Glasgow G4 0SF

jmd@ed.ac.uk

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