ABSTRACT

Approximately one out of every two American men and one out of every three American women will develop cancer at some point during their lifetime (American Cancer Society, 2010). The chances for these individuals to survive cancer vary considerably depending on the specifi c type diagnosed, the extent of disease at the time of initial diagnosis, and the responsiveness of the disease to treatment. Much of the early effort to combat cancer focused exclusively on testing new therapies to improve the quantity of patients’ lives (i.e., survival). These efforts, combined with improvements in early detection, have yielded impressive gains for certain forms of the disease.