Follow-up care amongst long-term childhood cancer survivors: a report from the Swiss Childhood Cancer Survivor Study

Rebholz, Cornelia E; von der Weid, Nicolas X; Michel, Gisela; Niggli, Felix K; Kuehni, Claudia E (2011). Follow-up care amongst long-term childhood cancer survivors: a report from the Swiss Childhood Cancer Survivor Study. European journal of cancer, 47(2), pp. 221-229. Amsterdam: Elsevier 10.1016/j.ejca.2010.09.017

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In the Swiss Childhood Cancer Survivor Study, we aimed to assess the proportion of long-term survivors attending follow-up care, to characterise attendees and to describe the health professionals involved. We sent a questionnaire to 1252 patients, of whom 985 (79%) responded, aged in average 27 years (range 20-49). Overall, 183 (19%) reported regular, 405 (41%) irregular and 394 (40%) no follow-up. For 344, severity of late effects had been classified in a previous medical examination. Only 17% and 32% of survivors with moderate and severe late effects respectively had made regular visits a decade later. Female gender, after a shorter time since diagnosis, had radiotherapy, and having suffered a relapse predicted follow-up. In the past year, 8% had seen a general practitioner only, 10% a paediatric or adult oncologist and 16% other health specialists for a cancer related problem. These findings underline the necessity to implement tailored national follow-up programmes.

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