Employment patterns of long-term cancer survivors.

As more people are diagnosed at earlier stages and surviving cancer, they are increasingly likely to be at working ages, where issues regarding productivity and employment continuation must be addressed by patients and employers alike. To this end, we studied the employment patterns of 253 long-term cancer survivors in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Of those working at the time of their initial diagnosis, 67% were employed 5-7 years later. Patients who stopped working did so because they retired (54%), were in poor health/disabled (24%), quit (4%), cited other reasons (9%), or their business closed (9%). Many employed patients worked in excess of 40 h per week although some reported various degrees of disability that interfered with job performance. Overall, the ability of cancer patients to continue employment appears optimistic.