Follow-up after treatment for thymus cancer
Follow-up care lets your healthcare team keep track of your health for a period of time after treatment ends. This important part of cancer care is often shared among the cancer specialists and your family doctor. They will help you recover from treatment side effects and monitor you for any signs that the cancer has come back (recurred).
Follow-up care may not seem that important to you, especially if your treatment was long or very hard. You may find the idea of follow-up care stressful because it reminds you of your cancer experience or because you are worried about what a test might reveal. Talk to your healthcare team about how you feel and about why follow-up matters. Your healthcare team is there to help.
Schedule for follow-up visits
Don’t wait until your next scheduled appointment to report any new symptoms, or symptoms that don’t go away. Tell your healthcare team if you have:
- a cough that doesn’t go away
- chest pain
- difficulty breathing
The chance that thymus cancer will come back depends on the type and stage of thymus cancer. Thymic carcinoma and advanced stages of thymoma have the greatest risk of coming back within 3 years, so you will need close follow-up during this time. Since early-stage thymoma can also come back 10 to 20 years after diagnosis, long-term follow-up is important too.
Follow-up visits for thymus cancer are usually scheduled at least every 6 months for the first 2 to 3 years. After this, follow-up is usually done once a year for at least 10 years. Talk to your doctor about the best schedule for you.
During follow-up visits
During a follow-up visit, your healthcare team will usually ask questions about the side effects of treatment and how you’re coping. They may also ask about any symptoms you are having.
Your doctor may do a physical exam, including:
- checking the surgical cut (incision) on the chest
- feeling lymph nodes in the neck and chest
Tests are often part of follow-up care. You may have a CT scan of the chest every 6 to 12 months to check if the cancer has come back.
If the cancer has come back, you and your healthcare team will discuss a plan for your treatment and care.
Find out more about follow-up
The following are questions that you can ask the healthcare team about follow-up after treatment for cancer. Choose the questions that fit your situation and add questions of your own. You may find it helpful to take the list to the next appointment and to write down the answers.
- What is the schedule for follow-up visits?
- How often is follow-up scheduled with the cancer specialist?
- Who is responsible for follow-up visits?
- What will happen at a follow-up visit?
- Which tests are done on a regular basis? How often are they done?
- Are there any symptoms that should be reported right away? Who do I call?
- Who can help me cope with long-term side effects of treatment?
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