It is estimated that there are over 500,000 adult Canadians living with a personal history of cancer and this is expected to continue to grow. Given the improved outcomes and prognosis for patients diagnosed with cancer, concerns have been raised regarding the quality of medical care that cancer survivors receive. Some medical conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, have become a common and major threat to the life of adult cancer survivors. The utilization and quality of preventive health care in the Canadian cancer survivorship population is unknown.
Data access has recently been approved for the first study in Canada to compare the preventive care offered to adult cancer survivors with that offered to the general population.
A team at the BC Cancer Agency, led by Medical Oncologist, Dr. Winson Cheung and his fellow Dr. Richard Lee-Ying, will investigate whether cancer survivors are offered routine screening for heart disease, diabetes and osteoporosis. The study will also examine whether cancer survivors are offered the appropriate secondary prevention medications following a heart attack or new diagnosis of congestive heart failure. Lastly, it will help determine if cancer survivors are offered appropriate screening for other second primary cancers.
The results will help determine if there is a need to educate the general health care community as a whole in regards to the preventive care treatment that should be offered to cancer survivors to ensure that they receiving appropriate follow up care.
PopData will link data from the BC Ministry of Health and BC Vital Statistics Agency with PharmaNet and BC Cancer Registry data for the project.
