Expanding Definition of Cancer Survivorship Highlights Need for New Standards

Nearly three-quarters of older adults with advanced cancer value quality of life over extending survival, according to study results presented at ASCO Annual Meeting.

Researchers studying HIV have long found Loreen Willenberg fascinating. The 71-year-old landscape designer, who lives in Sacramento, California, first tested positive for the virus in 1992 and scientists have tracked her for decades because she has shown an extraordinary ability to control the infection without ever taking treatment.

As a medical oncologist, one of the first threats I inform new patients about during the informed consent process for cancer treatment is how vulnerable they now are to infections.

For Terry Gillespie, a lung cancer survivor and patient advocate, the early days of her cancer diagnosis were consumed by isolation and the determination to make it through each day.