What CDC Is Doing About Hematologic Cancers

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funds efforts to raise awareness about hematologic cancers (leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma), including symptoms and treatments, to improve survivors' quality of life. These efforts offer health care providers the latest information about how to recognize the signs and symptoms of hematologic cancers and how to treat these diseases. They also connect the public, people living with hematologic cancers, and their friends and families with resources for understanding the diseases better; asking the right questions about diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship; receiving optimal treatment; and finding community support networks.

Accomplishments

CDC funds efforts to improve the awareness, diagnosis, understanding, and treatment of hematologic cancers.

• Community Media Productions created A Lion in the House, an Emmy^® Award-winning Public Broadcasting System television documentary on childhood cancer, which follows five children of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. They also produced a Web site for survivors entitled Survivor Alert.
• The Institute for Continuing Healthcare Education conducted and evaluated professional education events for primary healthcare professionals, and created a Web site to deliver education materials to primary health care professionals and share information from collaborators.
• The International Myeloma Foundation expanded outreach to African Americans, the elderly, underserved, uninsured, and underinsured to educate them about myeloma.
• The Research Triangle Institute partnered with the American Cancer Society to develop a comprehensive catalog and report summarizing 293 hematologic cancer resources currently available.
• University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center designed a Web site about hematologic cancers. The site offers professional training courses and continuing education credits to clinicians on diagnosis and treatment of hematologic cancers and provides clinical consultation services online. The University of Colorado provides education to primary care providers as well as hematologists.

Ongoing Work⁺

CDC continues to fund public and private, nonprofit and for-profit national organizations to increase awareness of and education about hematologic cancers. These cooperative agreements are designed to provide information to patients, their family members, friends, caregivers, and health care providers.

• The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is working to address disparities in patient access to clinical trials by providing training to oncology nurses, addressing cultural gaps for Hispanic and other underserved patients by removing barriers to cancer care, and providing a proactive navigation system to patients with the greatest need for immediate and ongoing support.
• The Lymphoma Research Foundation (LRF) continues to increase awareness of and access to lymphoma-specific education resources and patient support services by broadening its outreach to underserved minority/immigrant populations and lower literacy English-speaking patients. LRF is developing, testing, and disseminating new educational resources for underserved lymphoma patients, family members, friends, and caregivers for whom no materials existed.
• The Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF) continues its efforts to reach underserved populations by increasing awareness of multiple myeloma (MM) treatment options and clinical trials among health care providers, improving reach and effectiveness of MM patient education strategies, and increasing awareness of MMRF patient resources among patients and providers.
• The National Marrow Donor Program is providing new education and resources to the transplant survivorship community through partnerships. It also is expanding survivorship programs and resources to focus on medically underserved communities and increasing access to existing programs and resources for hematologic cancer survivors.
• The Patient Advocate Foundation is working with disease-specific organizations to produce new educational materials and will continue to provide outreach opportunities to patients and health care providers.

⁺Indicates programs previously funded under Program Announcement 04519.

Newly Funded Projects

• The Education Network to Advance Cancer Clinical Trials, Inc. (ENACCT) is conducting a pilot project aimed at educating newly diagnosed/newly recurred patients about treatment options, including clinical trial treatment options. In addition, ENACCT aims to increase awareness of support services, enhance cultural competency skills of clinical trial investigators and their teams, and disseminate information about clinical trial services.
• The Oregon Health and Science University Cancer Institute (ohsucancer.com) is providing educational materials for adolescent and young adult hematologic cancer survivors by revising currently available materials, developing treatment summaries, and disseminating educational materials and information.
• SuperSibs! Sibling Survivors Education and Information Dissemination Program is providing information about hematologic cancers to cancer survivors and their family members, friends, and caregivers. SuperSibs! supports, honors, and recognizes siblings of children diagnosed with cancer by disseminating tailor-made information and education packages that encourage open communication, catharsis, and support between parents, friends, teachers, and children.
• The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (NCCS) is working to expand the award-winning Cancer Survival Toolbox (CST) program—a program that provides information and education, including self-advocacy skills, to people diagnosed with multiple myeloma, adult leukemia, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Also, NCCS is addressing the needs of key underserved audiences by refining the CST and its distribution channels to African American, Latino, and American Indian populations.

Future Directions

The hematologic grantees have developed a wealth of materials for educating the public, patients, and providers. Future directions include facilitating collaborations between National Comprehensive Cancer Control Program grantees to expand awareness of and use of these materials.