People who survive cancers in their childhood or young adulthood may have medical and psychological concerns that last into their adulthood. While most survivors lead healthy, active lives, some have health problems that persist after treatment ends or that develop years after cancer therapy.
If this is the case for you, we hope that you’ll take advantage of our specialized Adult Long-Term Follow-Up Program, which functions as a part of our Adult Survivorship Program. Through this clinic, we provide long-term care that can help prevent, detect, and treat any delayed complications — known as late effects — that can arise.
Our program is open to survivors who were diagnosed as children or young adults and have transitioned to us from MSK KIDS Long-Term Follow-Up Program for Children, or have been referred to us by an MSKCC medical team.
We care for survivors of many types of cancer, including:
- Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- Pediatric sarcomas, such as osteosarcoma, Ewing’s sarcoma, and rhabdomyosarcoma
- Brain tumors, such as medulloblastoma and astrocytoma
- Leukemia
- Stem cell transplant recipients
- Neuroblastoma
- Retinoblastoma
- Wilms’ tumor
We also help people who received a bone marrow transplant as a child or young adult.
Our Survivorship Services
Our team of survivorship experts, which includes clinicians and members of the departments of nursing and social work, provide the following services:
- Treatment Summary and Survivorship Care Plan – To start, we develop a cancer treatment summary that includes a description of the cancer therapies you received and potential late effects. We update your care plan during each visit.
- Initial Consultation – We perform a physical exam and counsel you on your health risks and the need for any screening for long-term effects of cancer therapy, such as fasting blood tests, echocardiograms, and bone density tests.
- Health Education – One of our major goals is to provide you with information about staying healthy. We want you and your family to know about potential effects of past cancer treatments and ways to prevent future health problems.
- Psychosocial Care – Some survivors struggle with feelings of isolation, fear of recurrence, and stress over coping with ongoing health needs. Our psychologist and social worker can help with these as well as insurance and job-related concerns.
As a comprehensive cancer center, we also offer a variety of support services, from information and guidance on fertility and parenthood to sexual health, integrative medicine, nutrition, and tobacco cessation.
We work closely with our MSK colleagues who specialize in the care of cancer survivors, including cardiologists, pulmonologists, dermatologists, rehabilitation doctors, radiologists, and surgeons. If you have a healthcare need and we don’t have a specialist available, such as specialized heart surgery, we can refer you to a network of physicians and hospitals in the New York City area.
