According to a study by the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, about a third of all patients who have long struggled with breast, prostate, or colon cancer suffer from severe fatigue even 5–16 years after diagnosis, UNN reports.
Details
People with cancer often suffer from a constant feeling of complete exhaustion, known as fatigue. As scientists have found, fatigue persists for a long time after the end of treatment.
Reference
One of the most common consequences of cancer is fatigue – a prolonged feeling of physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. It occurs in 85% of patients during active therapy. Until now, it was believed that symptoms gradually disappear after the end of treatment.
However, the results of recent studies show that in many people who have survived cancer, fatigue persists for many years after the completion of therapy or reappears.
The study involved over 6,000 long-term survivors of breast, prostate, and colon cancer.
About 34-39 percent reported persistent fatigue symptoms; young people, as well as patients with depression and those with multiple comorbidities, suffer.
Fatigue is not a homogeneous symptom. We were able to show that physical, cognitive, and affective fatigue have different risk factors, as well as different associations with mortality.
Severe fatigue, especially physical, was associated with up to a 2.4-fold increased risk of death. The authors explain that physical fatigue may reflect a person's perception of what activities are still possible and what are not, regardless of their current condition – regardless of age and comorbidities.
Conclusion
The results emphasize the need for systematic screening for fatigue as part of follow-up care for cancer patients – even many years after the completion of treatment.
"Long-term survivors need long-term care concepts that integrate psychosocial, physical, and medical aspects," explains Volker Arndt from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), senior author of the study.
Recall
Lung cancer ranks first in the world in terms of mortality among oncological diseases. More than 1.7 million people die from this disease every year. And the biggest problem is timely detection.