Cancer Rehabilitation in the New MillenniumSupplement to Cancer

Introduction

Richard Payne, M.D.1

Juan Santiago-Palma, M.D.1

Andrea Cheville, M.D.2

1 Pain and Palliative Care Service, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York.

2 Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, Universityof Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The conference discussed in this introduction,“Cancer Rehabilitation in the New Millennium: Op-portunities and Challenges,” was held in NewYork, New York, on June 4–5, 1999.

Address for reprints: Richard Payne, M.D., Painand Palliative Care Service, Memorial Sloan-Ket-tering Cancer Center, 1275 York Avenue, NewYork, NY 10021.

Received February 10, 2001; accepted March 1,2001.

Over the past two decades, cancer rehabilitation has received littleattention in either the clinical or the basic science arenas. With

extended survivorship afforded by enhanced antineoplastic therapies,attention is being increasingly directed to quality-of-life issues forpatients who are either cured or grappling with advanced cancer.Rehabilitation can improve the quality of life for cancer patients bymaximizing functional status and reducing the morbidity associatedwith the disease and its therapy.

The major goal of contemporary cancer rehabilitation is to helpeach patient achieve maximum physical, social, psychologic, andvocational functioning within the limits imposed by cancer and itstherapy. This supplement contains 13 articles written by a panel ofexperts in the field of cancer rehabilitation. The articles were stimu-lated by a 21⁄2-day cancer rehabilitation conference held in June 1999in New York City. Drs. DeLisa and Gerber examine the past, present,and future of cancer rehabilitation and emphasize important direc-tions for future research. A multidisciplinary group, including ortho-pedic surgeons, physiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, physicaltherapists, and palliative care specialists, present reviews on specificcancer rehabilitation problems. The topics range from rehabilitationafter bone marrow transplantation to rehabilitation for advancedcancer patients. Finally, Drs. Grabois and Schmidt present their ex-perience with implementing cancer rehabilitation services at tertiarycare centers. Attention to the functional problems of cancer patientsis relevant at any point in the diagnostic and therapeutic continuumof the disease. Understanding cancer rehabilitation and its broadfocus on human functionality will allow us to improve, develop, andexpand cancer rehabilitation services. These efforts will likely en-hance the care and the quality of life of our patients.

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© 2001 American Cancer Society