Catholic University Seoul St. Mary's Hospital announced Wednesday that it has opened a "Kidney Cancer Survivor Health Clinic" to provide systematic health management for long-term survivors after kidney cancer treatment.
Kidney cancer has been showing an increasing trend among relatively young patients in their 30s to 50s in recent years. When detected at an early stage, the five-year survival rate exceeds 90 percent through precision treatments such as robotic surgery. Given the favorable prognosis, managing various health issues including cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, and declining kidney function remains crucial even after completing cancer treatment.
Patients who have been diagnosed with cancer not only experience significant anxiety about recurrence and secondary cancers but are also known to suffer psychological difficulties such as chronic fatigue, increasing the need for comprehensive lifelong health management.
Seoul St. Mary's Hospital has established a multidisciplinary integrated care system based on collaboration between the Department of Urology and the Department of Family Medicine, introducing a program that encompasses recurrence monitoring, chronic disease management, lifestyle improvement, and mental health support. The goal is to provide integrated medical services with a lifelong primary care physician concept for patients who have maintained stable conditions without recurrence or metastasis for more than five years after undergoing nephrectomy for kidney cancer.
The program consists of recurrence and secondary cancer screening including annual abdominal and chest computed tomography (CT) scans, chronic disease management through basic blood tests and urinalysis, and aging-related health management for conditions such as obesity, sarcopenia, and osteoporosis. When the Department of Urology identifies patients for long-term follow-up, dedicated nurses guide them through the continuous care program, and patients who consent are connected to collaborative care with the Department of Family Medicine. The hospital has also introduced a program where patients can input their health data directly through a dedicated hospital health app and receive coaching from medical staff during consultations. The aim is to enable two-way communication for improving daily lifestyle habits.
The hospital expects this to become an integrated care model that goes beyond the limitations of fragmented care to help kidney cancer long-term survivors with health management and quality of life improvement.
"This will serve as an opportunity for 'total care' that looks after cancer survivors' underlying conditions, lifestyle management, and mental health issues such as depression that arose during the treatment process," said Professor Ha Yu-shin of the Department of Urology.
