There are over 1.2 million of cancer survivors (individuals with the personal history of cancer) alive in Australia today and approximately 100 million around the world. Numbers are steadily growing due to earlier diagnosis and better treatment.
Being ‘cancer free’ is not necessarily being free of cancer’s undesirable consequences. Research shows that cancer survivors can experience undesirable consequences of cancer and its treatment including psychological, physical and practical concerns that are often insufficiently addressed.
Banner image: Sturt's Desert Pea (Swainsona Formosa) in bloom - the floral emblem of South Australia, our home state, and a fitting symbol of cancer survivorship; depicting both the beauty and the resilience of survival (photo courtesy of Dr S. Marshall).
Our team at FHMRI aims to improve the health and wellbeing of cancer survivors through research. We strive to increase our understanding of the nature and burden of problems that survivors experience and develop and test interventions that will improve outcomes and inform policy and practice.
We work closely with cancer survivors and collaborate with colleagues nationally and internationally in diverse disciplines including epidemiology, population health, psychology, physiotherapy and exercise medicine, pharmacy, geriatric oncology, cardiology, neurology, endocrinology and other areas.
We have a special interest in self-management in cancer. For further details on our global partnership, see Global Partnership on Self-Management in Cancer - Flinders University.
Read about our work in our Annual report for 2023.
Here are our favourite resources relating to cancer survivorship:
Professor Koczwara is a medical oncologist with expertise in breast cancer based at the Flinders Medical Centre and a research lead in cancer survivorship at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute. Her research is directly informed by her clinical practice and delivered through multidisciplinary collaborations with patients and survivors, health care providers, policy makers and researchers in diverse fields from epidemiology to biomedical research and implementation science. Trained at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, in Buffalo, New York, she also holds a Master in Bioethics from Monash University. Her work has been recognised by her appointment as the Member of the Order of Australia for her services to oncology.
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