Recently, the American Society of Hematology, which is the biggest organization of hematologist research for better understanding of issues associated with the blood, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, which is the most well-known health agency for people with blood cancer, have announced a combined initiative for patients of blood cancer and their families.
More specifically, the collaboration will be an extension of the LLS’s free services for people or families with a member who has blood cancer. The extension will provide the particular person further access to health facilities and connect him or her with a clinical trial being held for the treatment of cancer in the blood.
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Statistically, trials for understanding the development of cancer in the blood and any potential therapies have a very low percentage of actual patients. About five percent of the total adult patients are a part of a trial. The main goal of the collaborative initiative is to help connect more patients with similar research.
According to the chief medical officer of Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Gwen Nichols. there are a number of factors for the low percentage of patients enrolled in clinical trials. These can range from a lack of accessibility and proximity.
Additionally, it could also simply be because many of the patients are not aware of any ongoing trials. Nichols adds that the combined effort by both the LLS and ASH can help in making such people aware of research on blood cancer as well as help them in getting direct access and attention from clinicians and doctors.
Consequently, collaboration can do a lot more than just facilitating the current research on blood cancer. It can improve the treatment for a specific patient by accurate referral from Nurse Navigators at LLS who will then suggest the most appropriate trials for the patient based on the detailed information of his or her health obtained directly from the hematologist.
Hence, a patient will be able to get the most suitable and effective treatment or plan for blood cancer. LLS will provide these personalized treatment plans and services free of charge to the patients.
The president of the American Society of Hematology, Roy Silverstein, says time is crucial for a person who has been diagnosed with blood cancer. The majority of the time, there is a lot of time spent on finding the right clinical trial.
He further comments that the LLS and the ASH both hope that the collaboration will help in reducing the time spent on connecting with the right clinicians and trial by effective and fast communication with the hematologist, Nurse Navigator, doctor, and the patient.
The agreement between the two organizations, takes place in 2020, after which the ASH will provide its members, which are approximately two thousand five hundred, from both Canada and the United States access to the LLS Clinical Trial Support Center via a newly designed portal.
Prior to the partnership agreement, ASH and LLS had a six-month pilot study to observe the effects of providing access to CTSC. The results showed that the physicians at ASH found the information and data to be highly significant.
