It's a not part of the medical lexicon (at least not yet), but "scanxiety" is a word that cancer care providers would do well to know.
That's because it negatively affects patients' quality of life, may undermine follow-up care plans, and can even lead to unnecessary treatment, according to interviews with physicians and a review of the sparse medical literature on the subject.
Scanxiety is cancer patients' fear and worry associated with imaging, both before and after a test (before the results are revealed).
In early-stage patients who are successfully treated and have no evidence of disease, the underlying fear is about cancer returning and the dreaded implications.
In metastatic patients, the fear is based in scans' potentially revealing a lack of treatment effectiveness or disease progression.
Thus, at either stage of disease, scan results may portend death.
No comments:
Post a Comment