A cancer patients’ quality of life can be diminished as a consequence of symptoms directly relating to the cancer, such as pain, fatigue and stress. Anti-cancer therapy itself also directly affects quality of life, causing symptoms such as fatigue, diarrhoea and loss of taste and smell. Moreover, patients surviving from cancer can suffer from long term consequences of the cancer or the treatment. As a consequence the attention and importance of a patients’ quality of life is increasing with the success of anti-cancer treatment in saving and extending lives.
Within the Quality of Life research line of the Molecular Oncology department we perform clinical trials to investigate and improve strategies to alleviate symptoms that diminish quality of life on short and long term. Also, we use biobanking to assess long-term effects of cancer treatment.
Anti-cancer treatments are continuously being improved and are able to significantly extend lives of patients suffering from cancer. As a consequence, the question how patients survive and live during and after treatment is becoming more and more relevant.
Within the Quality of Life research line of the Molecular Oncology department we perform research aimed at improving quality of life during and after anti-cancer treatment, for example by improving and accelerating treatment-recovery, finding the best symptom-directed treatments and by investigating the long term consequences of treatment.
Often, chemotherapy is very effective at attacking a tumour. However, it also has consequences for the rest of the body, causing much known side-effects. We perform research to alleviate these side-effects, by for example introduction of an sport exercise intervention to alleviate fatigue and loss of physical fitness or by changing diet to improve the dampened taste and smell during therapy.
Sometimes, therapy only extends life for a short period, but cannot fully cure a patient. In these patients, improving quality of life by symptom-directed treatment is of great importance. We are an centre of expertise in palliative care, and perform early-phase clinical trials to improve quality of life for patients by directing our treatment to the symptoms of the cancer.
While the prognosis for some types of rare tumours is very poor, other tumours, like testicular cancer, can be treated very well and consequently have a relatively good prognosis. However, cancer survivorship often comes at a cost. We perform various clinical trials with the aim to predict which patients will develop complaints as a consequence of anti-cancer therapy and investigate what can be done to minimize these effects on the long term.
University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG)
Department of Medical Oncology, DA11
Postbus 30.001
9700 RB Groningen
The Netherlands
+31 50 361 28 21
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University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG)
Department of Medical Oncology
Hanzeplein 1
9713 GZ Groningen
