LAUSR

Fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) is a common unmet need reported by cancer survivors with both localized and metastatic disease. Defined as the “fear, worry or concern relating to the possibility that cancer will come back or progress,” FCR at higher levels has been associated with poorer quality of life, increased health care resource use, and functional impairment. FCR has been studied for more than 30 years; however, it is only in the last decade that the number of publications has increased as well as studies concerning the most effective way by which to identify, measure, and treat such symptoms. 5 Indeed, although the benefit of psychological interventions for FCR has been widely documented, most notably for contemporary cognitive behavioral therapies focused on processes of cognition, there remain more than 20 relevant multiitem measures available to assess FCR and no evidencebased treatment guidelines to guide health care providers. In addition, a systematic review has highlighted the association between FCR and the use of health care resources. In the study that follows this editorial, Meissner et al report a longitudinal examination of patients with 9 years of followup to establish the prevalence of FCR among those with earlystage prostate cancer treated with radical prostatectomy. The authors also explored possible predictors of FCR in this large sample (N = 2417) from the multicenter German Familial Prostate Cancer Database. Patients were assessed after radical prostatectomy at 2 time points (time 1 [T1] in 2010 and time 2 [T2] in 2019) with the Fear of Progression Questionnaire– Short Form, the Patient Health Questionnaire (2and 4item versions), and Generalized Anxiety Disorder 2. Findings from this study highlighted the fact that a low proportion of survivors reported moderate to severe FCR at T1 (6.5%) and at T2 (8.4%). Similar results were found for anxiety (T1, 4.8%; T2, 10.6%) and depression (T1, 4.9%; T2, 14.3%). This is line with previous studies in which patients with prostate cancer tended to report lower rates of emotional symptoms in comparison with patients with breast or lung cancer. Notably, however, the prevalence of FCR found in this study was even lower than the prevalences previously reported (which on average were 3 times higher). 13