title: A step forward in addressing cancer survivorship in the Asia-Pacific region.
abstract: Cancer survivorship is being increasingly recognized as an important component of cancer care. This commentary reviews the key findings reported in the recent BMC Medicine publication of the ACTION study, which focuses on the health-related quality of life and psychological distress in 5249 cancer survivors in eight low- and middle-income countries in Southeast Asia. The study identified that more than one-third of survivors experience at least mild levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms and that poorer outcomes in quality of life, anxiety, and depressive symptoms are linked to a number of clinical and demographic factors. Such data provides an important foundation to inform cancer policy and service planning in Asia. Future research efforts are required to further understand the needs of cancer survivors in this region and determine interventions to improve outcomes for this population.Please see related article: http://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-016-0768-2 .
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing and Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. raymond.chan@qut.edu.au.|Cancer Nursing Professorial Precinct, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Brisbane, Australia. raymond.chan@qut.edu.au.|Level 3, School of Nursing, N Block, Queensland University of Technology - Kelvin Grove Campus, Kelvin Grove, Q4059, Australia. raymond.chan@qut.edu.au.
authors.forename: Raymond Javan
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.|Department of Pharmacy, National Cancer Centre, Singapore, Singapore.
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing and Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.|Cancer Nursing Professorial Precinct, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital, Brisbane, Australia.
authors.forename: Patsy
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Yates
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China.
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Molassiotis
mesh_terms: D001208:Asia; D001210:Asia, Southeastern; D006801:Humans; D009369:Neoplasms; D011788:Quality of Life; D015996:Survival Rate
keywords: Asia; Asia-Pacific region; Cancer policy; Cancer survivorship; Low- and middle-income countries; Service planning