Correspondence (letter to the editor): App for Aftercare

The article confirms the sobering reality of secondary breast cancer after curative treatment for Hodgkin’s disease/ lymphoma (1). This late complication, along with cardiovascular disorders, ranges among the most serious late sequelae of treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma (2).

In view of the steadily rising prevalence rates of patients as survivors of cancer, the question that arises concerns effective aftercare and prevention of secondary malignancies. In the US, this topic has already become organized and institutionalized at the highest level, with the Office of Cancer Survivorship (OCS) at the National Cancer Institute, of the National Coalition of Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) and the “Children’s Oncology Group.” As described by the authors, such lifelong risks after treatment for malignancy require clearly defined and structurally organized responsibilities for the aftercare and, equally, preventive screening of survivors (3). In order to enable a simple navigation through the many institutions that are currently involved in aftercare, Boer et al., from Groningen/Netherlands, have tapped into the zeitgeist and developed a so called survivor care app for smartphones, whose many options and advantages are obvious, especially compared with written questionnaires or aftercare reports (4): https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/survivor-care. As in Hodgkin’s lymphoma, the nodular-sclerosing type is the most common (70%), the question arises to what extent common genetic susceptibilities are present for the primary cancer and the secondary breast cancer: is there a correlation with the intrinsic subtypes of breast cancer? Finally, I wish to underline that avoidance of noxious substances—such as cigarette smoking and alcohol—is crucial for the prevention of secondary neoplasias.