Abstract
A total number of two million of persons in Europe are affected today by a rare tumour that makes up one quarter of all malignancies. The classification includes a very heterogeneous group of more than 200 different cancers. Although the increasing precision medicine has led to great advances in treatment and survivor rates of all cancers, because of the rarity of some tumours, patients have lot of difficulties to be diagnosed, to be treated or to follow up care in adequate manner.
The purpose of this chapter is to describe how cancer nurses should be aware of the specific knowledge needed to take care of these patients, which are their main concerns, and the specific needs along the cancer process. It is discussed how few patients have the opportunity to participate in clinical trials or to get the excellent multidisciplinary team that they need because of disparity in equity among countries or regions.
This chapter includes some resources and links of support networks for the patients and professionals.
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About authors: Dr. Fernández–Ortega is the principal author. Inma Bonilla has contributed to some part of the manuscript. Both authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
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Fernández-Ortega, P., Bonilla, I. (2019). Rare Tumours. In: Charnay-Sonnek, F., Murphy, A. (eds) Principle of Nursing in Oncology . Principles of Specialty Nursing. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76457-3_23
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76457-3_23
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