Cancer Patient Follow-up: Introduction

Patient follow-up is performed by hospital based and many population based registries. Although these registries may use different methods and different sources, many of the procedures involved in following patients in their registries are similar. The follow-up system can promote optimal patient care and provide a valuable record of patient outcomes. The primary purposes of follow-up are to ensure continued medical surveillance to determine outcomes of the treatment, and to monitor the health status of the population under investigation. Follow-up information provides the documentation of residual disease or its spread, recurrences, or additional malignancies. Subsequent treatments should be included in the patient hospital database.

Outcome and end-results data enable researchers, physicians, and others to assess clinical standards, quality of care, and to predict patient survival. Follow-up information must be comprehensive. To produce survival data, successful follow-up must be maintained. These factors necessitate an organized system of long-term surveillance.