LIDIA SCHAPIRA: I'm Dr. Lidia Shapira, professor of medication at Stanford University, where I'm also director of the cancer survivorship program. At the 2023 ASCO Annual Meeting, researchers talked a few study they conducted to look at hope in patients who were participating in clinical trials, what we call early phase clinical trials, meaning they were participating in trials latest drugs or latest interventions.
And interestingly, they measured hope. There are literally some superb scientific ways to check this. And they found that individuals who had more hope, who were more hopeful, also had a greater quality of life and reported fewer symptoms.
This could be very exciting research since it helps us understand the importance of encouraging people to be hopeful or to explore their sources of hope. I actually have often considered hope as an indication of life. And these early research findings give me confidence that we are able to do more to grasp what makes people feel hopeful and what we are able to do as their doctors and clinicians to assist them be hopeful.
LIDIA SCHAPIRA: At the annual ASCO meeting in 2023, I used to be very encouraged to see the work of a really fantastic Canadian team that has done a really careful review of the published literature on caregivers, particularly caregivers living with individuals who have advanced cancer – people who find themselves probably quite sick.
And that is a vital area of ​​research because we all know that caregivers are also affected and their very own quality of life often decreases because of a number of the stresses related to caregiving.
And again, very optimistic: the researchers have present in all these studies that supporting caregivers actually results in good outcomes. They checked out many alternative interventions. So I can't say that there’s a specific variety of intervention that helps greater than others. But I used to be very encouraged to see that, for instance, counseling helps, that other interventions which are available to caregivers actually help them improve their quality of life, their emotional and psychological well-being.
So this could be very necessary for all of us. As a cancer doctor, I actually have often wondered how I should approach caregivers and whether it is sufficient to simply ask them how they’re or whether our team should approach them and offer more specific advice or other support. I actually hope that perhaps this research will encourage many more caregivers to ask for help after they need it and in addition encourage my colleagues to take into consideration how they will offer and implement more interventions to support caregivers living with patients with advanced cancer.
LIDIA SCHAPIRA: At the 2023 ASCO annual meeting, I used to be very encouraged to see some superb, detailed, very concrete work on how we can assist cancer survivors. This is my area of ​​expertise, so I'm all the time in search of innovations.
In this study, researchers checked out how likely cancer survivors were to attend screening for breast and cervical cancer. Using a really large database, they found that patients who had received some sort of guidance through a treatment plan or through someone really telling them what the following steps could be and what tests were needed were more prone to get that treatment. I'm generalizing a bit bit and I believe that cancer survivors often don't get or need very specific advice about what tests they need and after they should come back to the doctor, whether or not they must see their cancer specialist, their primary care doctor or one other specialist. And that's what we want to do more of.
So my advice to cancer survivors is don't leave the appointment without knowing exactly what it’s worthwhile to do next, what the following step is, or when the following appointment must be. And to my colleagues who’re clinicians, I might say we should always all do a greater job of creating it very clear to patients at the tip of the visit what we recommend in order that they receive the perfect care and the perfect practices to remain healthy after cancer.