A new year - and there's plenty in store for EJCC readers!

I hope all our readers have had a very happy festive season. The journal is going through an exciting period of change, with the recruitment of several new associate editors and plans to make our journal as “author friendly” as possible with a renewed commitment to rapid turnaround times and high-quality feedback on papers. We will also be announcing our themes for the following 12 months in our March 2018 issue. The January edition of EJCC is, once again, packed full of interest. I wanted to emphasise some papers in three important areas: (1) experiences of caregivers and family members of patients with cancer, (2) emerging models for better integrated care of cancer patients and (3) fear of recurrence amongst cancer survivors. Lehto, Aromaa, and Tammela (2018) have undertaken a questionnaire survey of spouses of prostate cancer patients. At the time of diagnosis and primary treatment, the survey explored levels of psychological distress; many respondents reported distressing experiences and a range of psychological symptoms. Shock, fear of death and impact of side effects were commonly expressed—importantly, distress was relieved by emotional support from healthcare providers along with appropriate levels of information. Bergkvist, Larsen, Johansson, Mattsson, and Fossum (2018) examined levels of psychosocial support for families to alleviate anxiety. Appropriate and measured support from healthcare professionals (and levels of competence) were critical in addressing these psychological symptoms. Teskereci and Kulakac (2018) examined the experiences of caregivers of women with gynaecological cancers. This mixed methods systematic review identified important categories of response amongst caregivers—including emotional devastation, change and coping. A more profound understanding of emotions of caregivers would be helpful in supporting this vital group of people—these emotions can have a profound impact on a range of cancer outcomes. Maguire, Hanly, Hyland, and Sharp (2018) examined the burden placed on caregivers of survivors of colorectal cancer. They identified a number of important patient and caregiver characteristics which predicted the caregiver experience and highlighted ways that the burden of caring might be reduced. Turning to integrated care issues, Koné, Klein, Siebenhofer, Dahlhaus, and Güthlin (2018) examined the level of cooperation between GPs and other healthcare providers in Germany. In common with other studies, they found that communication and adequate information transfer between different healthcare sectors were associated with overall satisfaction; cancer care can often be disaggregated, and primary care is often “left out of the loop” in important cancer decisions. More studies such as this are needed to help identify ways of improving integration of care. Integration is also important for palliative care; Pellizzari et al. (2018) examined integrated cancer palliative care (ICPC) plans in Italian patients. Interestingly, they found that the intensity of ICPC plans had a close correlation with care outcomes, including place of death and number of hospitalisations. The authors advocate wider use of ICPCs in routine practice. Lim, Shon, and Yang (2018) examine healthcare providers’ perceptions of cancer survivorship care models in South Korea. Their qualitative study examined a range of issues that Korean cancer survivors commonly face including the absence of multidisciplinary care approaches, fragmented services, lack of emotional support, lack of shared care, poor communication between physicians and cancer survivors, limited resources and a lack of tailoring of cancer survivorship services. The authors produce some interesting suggestions around organisation of care services to alleviate some of these difficulties. Patient navigators are also widely advocated as a strategy to improve experiences of patients with cancer. Indigenous populations in countries such as Canada and Australia have particularly acute problems when it comes to integrate cancer care. Patient navigator programmes appear to show promise in these populations, and Bernardes et al. (2018) highlight several strategies in using these approaches. They include recognition of collective bonds within indigenous communities, adaptation of existing skills for use in indigenous populations and the requirement for very innovative and highly flexible patient navigator strategies to accommodate the variability and challenges in these indigenous communities. Finally, fear of recurrence is a common issue amongst cancer survivors, and we have two interesting papers in this issue of the journal addressing the topic. Both papers emphasise the frequency of this emotion amongst cancer survivors and the variety of ways that fear is expressed. Dumalaon-Canaria, Prichard, Hutchinson, and Wilson (2018) emphasise the importance of perceived control over factors which might be associated with cancer or cancer recurrence and encourage health professionals to understand this process of attribution—and be particularly aware of patients attributing cancer to non-modifiable causes; when causes are perceived in this way, they are more likely to generate anxiety. Ozakinci, Swash, Humphris, Rogers, and Hulbert-Williams (2018) investigate how head and neck cancer survivors express fear of cancer recurrence. They suggest that patients may feel reluctant to raise their fear of recurrence with their care provider for fear of appearing ungrateful or hurting a relationship which they find very valuable. They advocate that healthcare providers should actually initiate discussions about fear of recurrence to overcome these challenges. So, as usual, there is plenty of interest for our readers. I would like to thank everyone who submitted papers to our journal in 2017—and our loyal readership. I should also acknowledge our wonderful team of associate editors and editorial board; their efforts are greatly appreciated. All the very best for 2018 and thank you for your ongoing support of our journal.

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