Feature

A round-up of ASCO’s 2013-2014 guideline releases, updates, and endorsements


 

During the past year, the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) has published 7 special articles that create, update, or endorse clinical practice guidelines. All 7 articles are the subject of this month’s review.

1. Follow-up care, surveillance, and secondary prevention measures for survivors of colorectal cancer1,2
Since 2006, ASCO has adopted a policy of endorsing clinical practice guidelines developed by others in order to increase the number of such guidelines available for ASCO membership. Recently, the society endorsed the guidelines for colon cancer follow-up created by the Cancer Care Ontario (CCO). These guidelines include surveillance recommendations that are very similar to the 2005 ASCO guidelines and the current NCCN guidelines, with a few minor differences. However, unlike NCCN and previous ASCO guidelines, the current guidelines include statements about secondary prevention, written survivorship plans for the patient’s other providers, and the futility of surveillance tests in patients who are not candidates for surgery or systemic therapy due to comorbid disease.

Click on the PDF icon at the top of this introduction to read the full article.

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