JCO: Comments - Rational Follow-Up After Curative Cancer Resection

Blogger's Note: not specific to ovarian cancer 

Rational Follow-Up After Curative Cancer Resection

"...Intensive follow-up for early detection of disease recurrence may
be necessary for clinical trials designed to determine the efficacy of
novel treatments. However, outside of such trials, focusing solely on
detecting recurrences of the index cancer during follow-up attenuates
clinical energy and financial resources that could help patients live
with and manage adverse effects of cancer treatment. Obviously,when
new treatments for recurrent or metastatic disease effectively prolong
survival, studies of the intensity of follow-up to assess survival benefit
should be undertaken. However, research on follow-up after curative
resection might be better focused on more-immediate aspects of
patient-centered cancer care, such as management or prevention of
treatment adverse effects. Currently, there are remarkably few trials addressing these issues. Recent maturation of the field of clinical quality-of-life research along with the clinical acceptance of validated patient-reported outcome measures provides a significant opportunity to improve this deficit. 42"