We are pleased to invite you to join health care providers, pharmaceutical industry representatives, bankers and insurers, governmental agencies, politicians and payers, physicians, nurses, psychologists and social workers, patients and patient advocacy groups at the 2nd EORTC Cancer Survivorship Summit to discuss the specific needs of cancer survivors.
A cancer diagnosis was once a death sentence, but survival rates of cancer patients have increased impressively over the years due to early diagnosis, innovative drugs and integrated therapeutic strategies combining chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy.
Long term survival and cure are now common for children with leukaemia and patients with Hodgkin’s lymphoma or testicular and breast cancers.
Even so, society often views cancer as a fatal disease despite the tremendous progress that has been made in treatment and the greatly increased number of survivors.
Surely, success has created new challenges, and there is now growing recognition that cancer treatments affect many patients not just mentally and physically, but also socio-economically.
Cancer patients become cancer survivors who want to return to a normal life.
They want good quality of life, appropriate insurance, and gainful employment. But the reality of life after cancer can be harsh.
Cancer survivors are frequently excluded from insurance, mortgages and jobs.
As a community, we need to address discrimination in seeking work, education and insurance by cancer survivors.
We are confident that this 2nd EORTC Cancer Survivorship Summit will facilitate interaction between clinicians, researchers, social workers, patients, insurers, bankers and policy makers and guide future research and health policies in Europe in this field.
