The topic of sexual health amongst most cancers survivors, while addressed at all, tends to focus on concrete, treatable issues, along with fertility and erectile dysfunction. However, cancer survivors additionally face numerous different, much less honest barriers to intimacy and sexual well-being.

“Most of what clinicians learn related to sexuality is based on a disease model, but there are many other aspects of sexuality-related to pleasant of life, sexual pleasure and intimacy,” Sharon L. Bober, Ph.D., senior psychologist in the branch of psycho-oncology and palliative care, director of the sexual health program, and assistant professor in the branch of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, stated in an interview. “Sexual health is at the exact intersection of physical, psychological, relationship, and cultural factors. There is often complexity to this equation. We can’t always just give someone a little blue pill and assume that to be enough.” Sexual health issues are not unusual among most cancers survivors, studies have shown. According to a record through Higano and colleagues posted in JCO Oncology Practice, a survey of cancer survivors performed from 2006 to 2007 confirmed 46% of respondents stated sexual fitness issues associated with the analysis and remedy of most cancers, and 71% referred to that that they’d acquired no care for sexual health issues.

Various research has pointed to the consequences of radiation, chemotherapy, surgical procedure, and hormone remedies on most cancers survivors, mainly the ones who’ve survived gynecologic and urologic cancers. Additionally, survivors who’ve gone through remedies directed to the pelvic vicinity can also have ongoing issues with vaginal narrowing, fibrosis, bowel and bladder troubles, and shortage of blood flow. Other cancers and their treatments can simply as without difficulty disrupt or undermine sexual fitness, in keeping with Patricia A. Ganz, MD, a prominent professor of health policy and control at UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, professor of drugs at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and director of the Center for Cancer Prevention & Control Research at Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.

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