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Cancer Control Research

Abstract

DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Description) Currently there are six million Americans alive with a history of cancer. By the year 2000 overall cancer survival rates will be over 54 percent. As people survive their cancers, there is the realization that they have psychosocial issues and long-term effects of cancer therapy with which to deal. This research project is designed to evaluate quality of life issues and late effects of normal tissues from primary cancer treatment in patients surviving at least five years that are alive without cancer. There are three objectives for this research project. 1. Define the issues surrounding the late effects from therapy in long-term survivors of HNC and prostate cancer patients. The opportunity exists to look at these long-term effects in a database of over 4,600 prostate cancer patients and over 2,700 HNC cancer patients. These comprise a unique patient population of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG), both in size and breadth. The validation of the Late Effects of Normal Tissue (LENT) and Subjective, Objective, Management, and Analytic (SOMA) tools in HNC and prostate cancer patients can be done in this population. 2. Describe the significant issues in quality of life in HNC and prostate cancer survivors. These include sexual functioning, marital problems, social, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Factors that may affect these endpoints include the ability to work and obtain insurance, socioeconomic status, age, and gender. 3. Through objectives one and two, design interventional studies to prevent or alleviate late effects. All data collected through this project will be centrally reviewed and appended to an established clinical patient record. Because all patients enrolled in this project are already participating in RTOG therapeutic clinical trials, there exists a prospective clinical record. The addition of this project will provide a prospective, continuous profile of clinical, quality of life, and acute and late effects data on long-term survivors of HNC and prostate cancer. This project will create one of the largest databases, both in size and breadth, of long-term survivors of HNC and prostate cancer.