Research Projects

Click on the category of interest to find out more about active research projects in Biobehavioral Sciences.

Enhancing Survival
Through interventions and assessments, we are defining strategies for enhancing quality of life after cancer treatment. Particular foci include long-term and late effects of hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Neurotoxicity
Cognitive changes can result from chemotherapy, analgesics or other etiologies during cancer treatment. We are studying outcomes, risks and treatments.

Pain Management
We have a major commitment to improving cancer pain treatment through pharmacologic and non-pharmacologic research.

Collaboration
We collaborate with a number of other Cancer Research Groups.

Related Information

Survivorship Program

Clinical Activities

Patient Materials

For information on publications see Faculty profiles:

• Karen Syrjala, PhD
• Danny Shen, PhD
• Jesse Fann, MD, MPH
• Brenda Kurland, PhD
• Shelby Langer, PhD

Symptom and Quality of Life (QOL) Measures

These measures have been developed by the biobehavioral sciences department under the direction of Dr. Karen Syrjala. The measures are available for use by investigators without a charge. However, to receive permission to use a measure and to receive a scoring manual, please email your request, describing briefly your planned research, to ksyrjala@fhcrc.org.

• Sexual Function Questionnaire (SFQ); male and female versions.
• Cancer and Treatment Distress (CTXD); acute version (for during and immediately after treatment), all version (for any time point including long-term follow-up of survivors), and caregiver version.
• Cognitive-Affective Side Effects (CASE; for measuring opioid non-analgesic outcomes) and manual [for measure and manual, send an email request to Karen Syrjala]
• Somatic Side Effects (SSE; for measuring opioid non-analgesic outcomes) and manual [for measure and manual, send an email request to Karen Syrjala]
• Muscle and Joint Measure (MJM)
• Social Activity Log (SAL)