old survivorship movement and the founder of the NCCS. He is the Murdock Head and Professor of Medicine and Health Policy and Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University. I am delighted to introduce them both here to you today.

Sandra Horning, President, American Society of Clinical Oncology

Thank you. It is a distinct pleasure for me to be here as ASCO president, and as a cancer survivor, to introduce today’s symposium. As you know, the purpose of the symposium is to convene the stakeholders, you, who are committed to the care and the quality of life of cancer survivors, so that we can discuss the findings of this report, present the challenges that are outlined, and develop action plans to realize the recommendations.

ASCO is clearly committed to cancer survivorship, and we have made a lot of progress in the last year.² First of all, an expert panel was convened by my predecessor, David Johnson, also a cancer survivor. This ASCO Survivorship Task Force is co-chaired by Patricia Ganz and myself. Members of the task force participated in the planning of today’s symposium. Our charge was to fully integrate survivorship into the activities throughout ASCO and all of its committees. We are also currently discussing partnerships with primary care societies in joint educational activities.

Survivorship is one of three major themes for the 2005-2006 ASCO year. It is very prominent in our member communications and is displayed prominently in our logo. And there will be concentrated sessions on survivorship and visibility of these issues at the 2006 annual meeting.

Some of our accomplishments in the areas of education and science include providing a permanent home for survivorship in our patient and survivor care track. This means that we have, and will continue to recruit, individuals with an interest and expertise in survivorship to populate both of our committees.

Our educational sessions at the 2006 meeting will include among others, Dr. Ganz talking about the development of a survivorship care plan and Dr. Lois Travis (NCI) talking about assessment of the risks of secondary cancers. We feel that having this permanent home in our scientific programs will help us to attract and promote survivorship research on a permanent basis. We have also begun to integrate survivorship into the core curriculum for oncology fellows.