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Children’s Cancer and Environmental Exposures: Professional Attitudes and Practices

Epidemiologic studies worldwide have provided substantial evidence of the contributions of environmental exposures to the development of childhood cancer, yet this knowledge has not been integrated into the routine practice of clinicians who care for children with this disease. To identify the basis...

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Autores principales: Zachek, Christine M., Miller, Mark D., Hsu, Christopher, Schiffman, Joshua D., Sallan, Stephen, Metayer, Catherine, Dahl, Gary V.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4571458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26334434
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MPH.0000000000000416
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author Zachek, Christine M.
Miller, Mark D.
Hsu, Christopher
Schiffman, Joshua D.
Sallan, Stephen
Metayer, Catherine
Dahl, Gary V.
author_facet Zachek, Christine M.
Miller, Mark D.
Hsu, Christopher
Schiffman, Joshua D.
Sallan, Stephen
Metayer, Catherine
Dahl, Gary V.
author_sort Zachek, Christine M.
collection PubMed
description Epidemiologic studies worldwide have provided substantial evidence of the contributions of environmental exposures to the development of childhood cancer, yet this knowledge has not been integrated into the routine practice of clinicians who care for children with this disease. To identify the basis of this deficit, we sought to assess the environmental history-taking behavior and perceptions of environmental health among pediatric hematologists and oncologists. PROCEDURE: A web-based survey was sent from June to October 2012 to 427 pediatric oncologists, fellows, and nurse practitioners from 20 US institutions, with an overall response rate of 45%. RESULTS: Survey responses indicated that environmental exposures are of concern to clinicians. The vast majority of respondents (88%) reported receiving questions from families about the relationship between certain environmental exposures and the cancers they regularly treat. However, a lack of comfort with these topics seems to have limited their discussions with families about the role of environmental exposures in childhood cancer pathogenesis. Although 77% of respondents suspected that some of the cases they saw had an environmental origin, their methods of taking environmental histories varied widely. Over 90% of respondents believed that more knowledge of the associations between environmental exposures and childhood cancer would be helpful in addressing these issues with patients. CONCLUSIONS: Although limited in size and representativeness of participating institutions, the results of this survey indicate a need for increased training for hematology/oncology clinicians about environmental health exposures related to cancer and prompt translation of emerging research findings in biomedical journals that clinicians read.
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spelling pubmed-45714582015-09-30 Children’s Cancer and Environmental Exposures: Professional Attitudes and Practices Zachek, Christine M. Miller, Mark D. Hsu, Christopher Schiffman, Joshua D. Sallan, Stephen Metayer, Catherine Dahl, Gary V. J Pediatr Hematol Oncol Medical Progress Epidemiologic studies worldwide have provided substantial evidence of the contributions of environmental exposures to the development of childhood cancer, yet this knowledge has not been integrated into the routine practice of clinicians who care for children with this disease. To identify the basis of this deficit, we sought to assess the environmental history-taking behavior and perceptions of environmental health among pediatric hematologists and oncologists. PROCEDURE: A web-based survey was sent from June to October 2012 to 427 pediatric oncologists, fellows, and nurse practitioners from 20 US institutions, with an overall response rate of 45%. RESULTS: Survey responses indicated that environmental exposures are of concern to clinicians. The vast majority of respondents (88%) reported receiving questions from families about the relationship between certain environmental exposures and the cancers they regularly treat. However, a lack of comfort with these topics seems to have limited their discussions with families about the role of environmental exposures in childhood cancer pathogenesis. Although 77% of respondents suspected that some of the cases they saw had an environmental origin, their methods of taking environmental histories varied widely. Over 90% of respondents believed that more knowledge of the associations between environmental exposures and childhood cancer would be helpful in addressing these issues with patients. CONCLUSIONS: Although limited in size and representativeness of participating institutions, the results of this survey indicate a need for increased training for hematology/oncology clinicians about environmental health exposures related to cancer and prompt translation of emerging research findings in biomedical journals that clinicians read. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 2015-10 2015-09-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4571458/ /pubmed/26334434 http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MPH.0000000000000416 Text en Copyright © 2015 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
spellingShingle Medical Progress
Zachek, Christine M.
Miller, Mark D.
Hsu, Christopher
Schiffman, Joshua D.
Sallan, Stephen
Metayer, Catherine
Dahl, Gary V.
Children’s Cancer and Environmental Exposures: Professional Attitudes and Practices
title Children’s Cancer and Environmental Exposures: Professional Attitudes and Practices
title_full Children’s Cancer and Environmental Exposures: Professional Attitudes and Practices
title_fullStr Children’s Cancer and Environmental Exposures: Professional Attitudes and Practices
title_full_unstemmed Children’s Cancer and Environmental Exposures: Professional Attitudes and Practices
title_short Children’s Cancer and Environmental Exposures: Professional Attitudes and Practices
title_sort children’s cancer and environmental exposures: professional attitudes and practices
topic Medical Progress
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4571458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26334434
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/MPH.0000000000000416
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