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Background: Cancer diagnosis and treatment of a parent has considerable impact on the lives of their minor children, family caregivers, and patients themselves. Understanding the number and characteristics of the population of cancer survivors with children younger than 18 years of age would help to better target services for these survivors and their children and to stimulate and inform research on these understudied families.Methods: This study identified adults with a history of cancer (n = 13,385) who participated in the United States National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) between 2000 and 2007. The authors examined the prevalence and characteristics of survivors residing with their minor children, both in the total sample and among survivors diagnosed within the last 2 years.Results: Among these adult survivors, 18.3% (95%CI, 16.3-20.5) of those recently diagnosed and 14.0% (95%CI 13.3-14.8) of the total sample reported living with a minor child. Most of these survivors were female (78.9%), married (69.8%), and younger than age 50 years (85.8%). Of the 3193 identified children of survivors, 30.5% were younger than age 6 years at the time of their parent's cancer diagnosis; 33.4% were born after the diagnosis. By using population-based weights, the authors estimated that 1.58 million US cancer survivors reside with their minor children, representing 2.85 million children. Furthermore, an estimated 562,000 US minor children are living with a parent in the early phases of cancer treatment and recovery.Conclusions: There is a large population of families for whom cancer may pose special challenges and for whom assessment of needs and referral to resources are essential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Little is known about cancer surveillance (mammography, clinical breast examination, and pelvic examination) behaviors in long-term (9-16 years) breast cancer survivors. This report describes the relation of these behaviors to demographic and clinical characteristics, psychological symptoms, body satisfaction, and social support.Methods: Survivors who had participated in Cancer and Leukemia Group B treatment Trial 8541 completed a survey that included questions on breast cancer surveillance and pelvic examination, psychological well being, body satisfaction, and social support.Results: The participation rate was 78% and included 245 breast cancer survivors. Survivors (n = 107; 44%) reported completing breast cancer surveillance (mammography and clinical breast examination) and completing pelvic examination (n = 162; 68%) within recommended guidelines. There were no significant associations between breast cancer surveillance and breast cancer anxiety, depression, stressful life events, body satisfaction, social support, or demographic characteristics. Survivors within recommended guidelines for pelvic examinations were younger (P = .05), married (P = .003), had health insurance (P = .004), and had lower depression scores (P = .005) than survivors who underused or overused pelvic examination. In addition, survivors within recommended pelvic examination guidelines had significantly lower levels of breast cancer anxiety (P = .03) compared with survivors who underused pelvic examination.Conclusions: Many long-term breast cancer survivors were not within recommended cancer surveillance guidelines. Private health insurance was associated with following recommendations for pelvic examinations, although such a relation did not exist for breast cancer surveillance. The results of this study have implications for the development of educational programs to improve cancer surveillance among the growing population of long-term breast cancer survivors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]