SAN ANTONIO (April 30, 2013) – Treatments for many cancers have improved dramatically, and there are more than 13 million cancer survivors in the United States today, with 18 million predicted by 2020.
The flip side of that is that cancer survivorship comes with a set of risks and complexities that take more than a regular oncology checkup to monitor.
Complete care for cancer survivors is the topic of “After the Cancer — Support for People of All Ages,” a free public lecture at the Cancer Therapy & Research Center on Thursday, May 9.
“Everything we do in oncology is to cure the disease,” said Gregory Aune, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatric oncologist in the School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio, “but cancer is both an acute and a chronic disease.”
Dr. Aune would know. He was diagnosed as a teen with Hodgkin’s disease and will be able to talk about the issues from a personal perspective as well as that of an oncologist.
Joining Dr. Aune will be two other speakers. Helen Parsons, Ph.D., M.P.H., is an assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Health Science Center who led a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on the challenges faced by young cancer survivors in returning to school and work.
“We’ll talk about our population and how we’re trying to address those issues here in South Texas,” Dr. Parsons said.
Anand Karnad, M.D., is a CTRC hematologist/oncologist with extensive experience in geriatric cancer patient treatment.
“Cancer survivors, particularly elderly cancer survivors, have different health care needs,” Dr. Karnad said. “It’s important for physicians, caregivers and the patients themselves to pay attention to these needs.”
The lecture, which is open to the public and has a question-and-answer session, will be Thursday, May 9 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on the fourth floor of the CTRC’s Grossman Building, 7979 Wurzbach Rd., San Antonio. For more information call (210) 450-1152. It will be streamed live online at www.CTRC.net/LIVE. The lecture is also sponsored by H-E-B and the Institute for the Integration of Medicine and Science at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio.
The Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is one of the elite academic cancer centers in the country to be named a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Designated Cancer Center, and is one of only four in Texas. A leader in developing new drugs to treat cancer, the CTRC Institute for Drug Development (IDD) conducts one of the largest oncology Phase I clinical drug programs in the world, and participates in development of cancer drugs approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration. For more information, visit www.ctrc.net.