Follow-up of cancer in primary care versus secondary care: systematic review

Cancer survivors’ preference for follow-up care providers: a cross-sectional study from the population-based PROFILES-registry

“…Differences might be explained by the fact that survivors were not specifically informed about the competence of care providers to provide follow-up care. Systematic reviews showed that cancer survivors were satisfied with follow-up care provided by oncology nurses and general practitioners [9,10]. This indicates that unfamiliarity with oncology nurses and general practitioners lead to lower perceived competence of the respective care providers.…”

“…Moreover, several reviews including trials in breast, prostate, lung, ovarian and colon cancer, suggest that psychological morbidity of cancer survivors is similar when receiving follow-up care from oncology nurses or general practitioners compared to medical specialists [8][9][10].…”

The future for follow-up of gynaecological cancer in Europe. Summary of available data and overview of ongoing trials

“…A systematic review on follow-up of cancer in primary versus secondary care reported weak evidence that primary care follow-up was effective [4]. Patients treated for breast and colorectal cancer have reported high levels of satisfaction with nurse-led telephone follow-up [13][14][15].…”

“…If improved survival is not a realistic goal of scheduled hospital based surveillance then models of delivery of care should arguably be more flexible to meet the individual needs of patients. While benefits of follow-up might be questionable, patients often experience long-term side effects following their treatment and may experience psychological or psychosexual issues [3,4]. In addition, patients often experience anxiety prior to their appointments for cancer follow-up [5][6][7][8] and brief consultations may not provide opportunities for discussion of emotional problems and concerns.…”

Eastern Canadian Gastrointestinal Cancer Consensus Conference 2016

“…Average cost per patient was £2479 and within the range of cost acceptability in most jurisdictions. Emerging evidence suggests that general practitioner-led post-treatment follow-up programs are equivalent to specialist-led programs 5,6 .…”