Cancer Survivor Checks That Are Easy to Miss

Follow-up after cancer usually centres on the cancer itself. The checks that are easier to miss are the ones tied to the treatment you had, because they can matter years later and often belong to a different doctor, such as a cardiologist or your primary care clinician. Below is each one, with what the source says. It is a list of what to ask about, and your survivorship care plan is what sets your own schedule.

For keeping your follow-up results together, see our page on cancer survivor follow-up tests to track.

The checks and what the sources say

• A written care plan. The National Cancer Institute says a survivorship care plan is a summary of your treatment, along with recommendations for your cancer care after treatment ends, and that your team should give you a written summary of the treatment you received.
• Heart checks after some treatments. The 2022 European Society of Cardiology cardio-oncology guideline recommends a yearly cardiovascular risk assessment, including an assessment by a clinician, blood pressure, a lipid profile, HbA1c, an ECG and a natriuretic peptide blood test, for survivors treated with heart-affecting drugs or chest radiation. A 2023 review of that guideline says survivors at moderate risk should have a heart ultrasound (echocardiogram) every 5 years, and those at high or very high risk 1, 3 and 5 years after therapy. The NCCN patient guide says an echocardiogram, an ECG or both may be needed.
• Thyroid tests. The Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer's 2021 guideline says TSH and free T4 should be checked every 4 to 6 weeks during immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment and every 6 to 12 months after it ends. The National Cancer Institute says the doctor may monitor thyroid and pituitary function, especially if the head or neck was treated with radiation.
• Bone density. The American Cancer Society says that if you are taking an aromatase inhibitor, your healthcare team will likely check your bone density regularly. For other hormone treatments, ask whether bone health needs checking.
• Routine cancer screening. The National Cancer Institute says to ask your doctor what cancer screenings you should have and when, and to stay up to date with screenings and vaccines.
• Emotional well-being. The NCCN patient guide says distress is more likely around routine health care visits and that screening for mental disorders is also very important at these times.

Questions to ask your care team

• Do I have a written survivorship care plan and treatment summary, and who owns each follow-up item?
• Given my past treatment, should I have heart checks or a heart ultrasound, and how often?
• Should my thyroid be checked because of radiation or immunotherapy?
• Do I need a bone density scan with my current treatment?
• Which routine cancer screenings am I due for, and does my history change when?
• Can we check in on mood, stress and sleep at my next visit?

A free check you can run with your AI assistant

If you use Claude or ChatGPT and have connected it to philongevity.com/mcp (the steps are on our page for AI assistants), ask it to run the Phi Longevity care-gaps check. It needs no lab values, dates, names or records: only your condition, a few types of medicine, and for each routine test whether it was done recently, overdue, never done, or you are not sure. It returns the same list as this page, in order, with the guideline behind each item, the questions to ask each clinician, and a one-page checklist to print. It is decision support for visit preparation, not a diagnosis.

What to do with the files

1. Download your lab reports from each place you have been seen (how to download lab results from MyChart).
2. Connect MyChart at participating Epic health systems, or upload the reports, in your own account at philongevity.com.
3. Phi Longevity PRISM builds a one-page Care Team Brief with each result, its date and source, its trend and the guideline behind each flag. You print it or save it as a PDF and bring it with your care plan. See the cancer survivor follow-up lab guide.

Phi Longevity is not a healthcare provider or a "covered entity" under HIPAA for your personal account. We store your records in HIPAA-eligible systems under a signed business associate agreement with Google Cloud, and we protect them to that standard. You can ask us to delete your data at any time.

Your first Care Team Brief is free. Phi Longevity Complete is $19/month and keeps the brief current as new results arrive.

Start free: put my follow-up results on one page →

What Phi Longevity PRISM does not do

It does not diagnose, and it does not tell you which tests you need, how often, or what a result means for you. The schedules on this page are the general ones the guidelines state; your clinician may set a different one. It reads lab results today; medicines, diagnoses and allergies are not imported yet. It uses the range printed on your own lab report and never swaps in its own. It does not replace your survivorship care plan or your cancer care team, who decide what you need.