Long-term monitoring following complete remission
Cancers are genetic disorders that rarely go away completely, the genetic defect still remains even in a minority of cells and cancer recurrence is not uncommon. In most cases, cancer recurrence tends to have worse outcome than the primary condition, but its monitoring remains essential to catch it in an early stage. The risk of recurrence is usually highest in the first 2-3 years following remission and follow-up has to be extensive during this period.
For the first 2 years, follow up is done every 2-4 months via clinical examination, blood tests including hormonal levels and sometimes, radiological investigations. The period is extended to 6 months for the next 3 years and then every 1 year afterwards. An additional concern, however, is the increased risk of developing cancer after such high exposure to radiation either for therapeutic or monitoring purposes which also indicates running some tests to check for cancers that may result from radiation after 10 years of complete remission from Hodgkin’s.