CALGARY – New research has found testicular cancer survivors need only be monitored with CT scans for two years following treatment instead of five.
“We looked at relapse patterns to see when was the most important time to follow patients and we found that, if after two years, you’re still disease free and your CT scans are free, you’re probably golden,” Dr. Daniel Heng, an oncologist with the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, said.
Researchers looked at the cases of about 1,000 testicular cancer patients who had been treated for metastatic disease, or cancer that had spread.
They found, among those who were disease-free two years after diagnosis and treatment, the cure rate was 98 per cent.
As a result of the findings, guidelines on disease surveillance are changing. American guidelines have already been changed and this week Alberta guidelines changed as well.
Heng said changing the recommendations to just two years will reduce the number of CT scans ordered in Alberta each year.
“It will likely mean hundreds of fewer CT scans will need to be ordered, but I think more important than the cost savings is reducing patient anxiety because patients hate waiting for their CT results,” Heng said.
“It’s really anxiety provoking for them, so we can eliminate that after two years.”
The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology
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