Why Is Burden of Care the Biggest Challenge of Cancer Treatment?

CancerNetwork® spoke with Rachel Greenup, MD, MPH, a professor of surgery, the section chief of Breast Surgery, and the codirector of the Center for Breast Cancer at Smilow Cancer Hospital of Yale School of Medicine, about breast cancer treatment during a site visit to Yale School of Medicine. Greenup specializes in patient-centered breast cancer care and reducing the financial, logistical, and emotional burdens associated with treatment, among other things.

Plainly put, Greenup stated that the burden of care is the most difficult aspect of receiving cancer therapy. While the first goal is always to complete treatment and survive, it’s important that patients thrive instead of simply surviving. There are several ways to go about this, but she highlighted reducing the adverse effects of the therapies and surgeries that patients undergo as one of the most important.

An ongoing effort is to keep patients informed on their diagnosis and what it truly means, but also to help them understand all their treatment options so they can make informed decisions.

Transcript:

The biggest challenge with being a [patient with] cancer is often the burden of care. Everybody hears they have cancer, and their first goal is to get through their cancer treatment and to survive, but once the diagnosis has settled in and once treatment has been undergone or completed, patients realize they deserve to thrive after a cancer diagnosis. Making sure we’re reducing not only the [adverse] effects of the therapies we give, the surgeries we perform, but also making sure we keep patients whole, financially, psychologically, and emotionally, is critical to us. We’re studying how to make sure women know what they’re facing, that they’re making informed decisions, and that the collateral damage or [adverse] effects of those treatment decisions don’t leave them worse off than they were prior to their cancer diagnosis.