PanCare PLAIN Language Summaries

The PLAIN language summaries have information about possible late effects and recommendations for long-term follow-up (LTFU) care in PLAIN (Person-centred, Lay-language, Accessible, International, Navigable) language. They were created for survivors, as well as their non-specialist healthcare providers, relatives and friends. As you may know, people diagnosed with cancer need cancer treatments to recover. Cancer treatments damage and kill cancer cells, but can also damage healthy cells. When healthy cells get damaged, this may increase the risk of developing health problems later in life. Future health problems caused by childhood cancer or cancer treatment are called late effects. For this reason, lifelong follow-up care is recommended to early detect, prevent or treat late effects. Therefore, international guidelines (IGHG guidelines and PanCareFollowUp recommendations for LTFU care) have been developed providing recommendations for personalised LTFU care, depending on your illness and treatment. However, these guidelines are primarily written for healthcare professionals and are therefore not so easy to read for the general population. That’s why the PLAIN summaries were developed. In total, there are 45 PLAIN summaries each describing one late effect. Every summary starts with a short introduction to the topic. After that, higher risk groups are discussed and symptoms and signs of having that late effect are described. Based on the official guidelines, recommendations for LTFU care are given.