Lead author Larissa Nekhlyudov, MD, MPH, of the HPHC Institute, and her colleagues from other institutions conducted a national survey of over 2200 oncologists and primary care physicians and asked them to select the long-term effects (LEs) they had either observed or had seen reported for five chemotherapy agents used to treat breast and colon cancer.
Differences between clinicians in awareness of specific LEs was described and predictors of physicians’ awareness of LEs associated with the chemotherapy agents was determined using multivariate logistic regression models.
The five long-term effects of specific interest included cardiac dysfunction, premature menopause, secondary malignancies, pulmonary fibrosis, and peripheral neuropathy.
For chemotherapy agent doxorubicin, 55% of PCPs and 95% of oncologists stated they had observed or seen reported cardiac dysfunction as an associated LE. For agent cyclophosphamide, 15% of PCPs and 71% of oncologists identified premature menopause as an LE, and 17% and 62% identified secondary malignancies, respectively. Peripheral neuropathy was identified as an associated LE for paclitaxel by 27% of PCPs and 97% of oncologists and for oxaliplatin, by 22% of PCPs and 97% of oncologists.
The study points out that there is a need for ongoing education about LEs of cancer treatment among all physicians who care for cancer survivors. Since PCPs don’t usually encounter chemotherapy agents and LEs in their clinical practices, oncologists need to communicate information about them.