Who should manage post-treatment care for patients with colon cancer: surgeons or general practitioners?

Mené aux Pays-Bas entre 2015 et 2018 sur 353 patients atteints d'un cancer du côlon de stade I-III ou d'un carcinome recto-sigmoïde traité par chirurgie (durée médiane de suivi : 12,2 mois), cet essai randomisé multicentrique de phase II compare la qualité de vie des patients ayant été suivis après le traitement par un médecin généraliste ou par un chirurgien

Résumé en anglais

In The Lancet Oncology, Julien A M Vos and colleagues 1 have tried to answer an important question with the I CARE study: who should oversee follow-up care for patients with colon cancer? Follow-up after colorectal cancer treatment has previously been studied in several randomised clinical trials, with the aim of providing an evidence base for a follow-up algorithm. 2 However, the primary endpoints of these trials was often detection of recurrence or survival. So far, no study or meta-analysis has provided solid evidence that more intense hospital-based follow-up is beneficial for overall survival; other outcomes that follow-up could affect, such as quality of life (QOL), have also not been thoroughly investigated. QOL was the primary endpoint of Vos and colleagues' randomised controlled trial, and thus their approach is novel. The authors have reported interim 1-year QOL results from their 5-year study that compared GP-led follow-up with standard surgeon-led follow-up for patients with colon cancer. No difference in quality of life was apparent between patients who received GP-led follow-up and those who received surgen-led follow-up.