Precision Medicine and Immunotherapy Hold Promise for Blood Cancer Patients, But Cost of Cancer Care is a Growing Obstacle, Say Experts Convened by…

Precision Medicine and Immunotherapy Hold Promise for Blood Cancer Patients, But Cost of Cancer Care is a Growing Obstacle, Say Experts Convened by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society LLS

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Cancer Vaccine Week -- - The nation's leading experts on blood cancers and healthcare policy convened yesterday in Washington, D.C. to discuss the ever-increasing cost barriers that patients and their families face to access high-quality care, as well as discuss cutting-edge blood cancer research and treatments. The event was organized by The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), the world's largest voluntary health organization dedicated to funding research, finding cures and ensuring access to treatments for blood cancer patients (see also The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society).

Experience the interactive Multimedia News Release here: https://www.multivu.com/players/English/7554857-leukemia-and-lymphoma-society-blood-cancer-roundtable/

In conjunction with the event, LLS issued its HYPERLINK "http://www.lls.org/sites/default/files/National/LSS-Report-05.2.pdf" nReport to the Nation: Leading the Way to Cancer Cures, a comprehensive overview on the major scientific, treatment and policy advances of the last 68 years that have impacted blood cancer patients, including new treatments-many funded through LLS's support-that are now helping patients with other cancers and chronic diseases.

"One of LLS's differentiating strengths is our ability to bring together all the stakeholders in the cancer ecosystem to ensure patients have access to the latest and most effective therapies," said Louis J. DeGennaro, Ph.D., LLS president and CEO. "We are seeing remarkable advances in the fight against cancer, and we believe that it is through collaboration that we will achieve our goal of a world without cancer."

Experts Discuss Cost of Cancer Care and Precision Medicine Approaches to Cancer Treatment

While extraordinary progress is being made for blood cancer patients, more than one-third of patients still do not survive five years after their diagnosis. Approximately every three minutes, a person in the United States is diagnosed with a blood cancer; every nine minutes, someone dies from it. The death rate from certain blood cancers such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remains high, and some treatment protocols have not changed in decades. Moreover, patients are bearing more of the financial burden, paying increasingly larger portions out of their own pockets for their cancer care.

To explore the current and future successes and issues facing the blood cancer community, LLS convened two panel discussions, one on the financial burden of cancer care for patients and their families, followed by an examination of how new precision medicine and immunotherapy approaches are dramatically changing the cancer treatment landscape.

Keywords for this news article include: Oncology, Hematology, Blood Cancer, Immunotherapy, Drugs and Therapies, Investment and Finance, Immunoproliferative Disorders, Lymphoproliferative Disorders, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Lymphatic Diseases and Conditions.

Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world. Copyright 2017, NewsRx LLC