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How often should an incurable cancer be scanned? New evidence-based method shows the way


December 3, 2019

Dr. David Stewart and patient“Currently, physicians use their best judgement to decide how often patients with incurable cancers should go in for scans. Our evidence-based method will help with this decision and improve care for patients,” - Dr. David Stewart, oncologist and clinician investigator at The Ottawa Hospital and professor at the University of Ottawa.A team led by Dr. David Stewart has developed a way to calculate how often patients receiving life-extending treatments for incurable cancers should have follow-up scans. These scans can show whether a treatment is keeping a patient’s tumour from growing, or whether they should switch to a different treatment. 

If scans are done too often, the changes in tumour size are less obvious, leading to incorrect treatment decisions. The researchers used a mathematical pattern to calculate progression-free “half-lives” for a variety of tumour and therapy combinations. 

Their results suggest that follow-up scans should be done more frequently for tumours and therapies with shorter half-lives, and less frequently for tumors that progress more slowly. With advances in treatment, many patients can live for years without their tumour progressing. These methods can help clinicians customize the frequency of follow-up scans based on a patient’s tumour and treatment.

“Currently, physicians use their best judgement to decide how often patients with incurable cancers should go in for scans. Our evidence-based method will help with this decision and improve care for patients,” said Dr. David Stewart, oncologist and clinician investigator at The Ottawa Hospital and professor at the University of Ottawa.

Source: Cancer Medicine

Authors: David J. Stewart, David B. Macdonald, Arif A. Awan, Kednapa Thavorn

Research at The Ottawa Hospital is possible because of generous donations to The Ottawa Hospital Foundation

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Tags: Cancer