September is Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma Awareness Month


 
 

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) will host a Blood Cancer Awareness Day on Saturday, September 17, 2011 at The Savannah Mall – Center Court from 12:00 – 4:00 p.m. – partnering with those in the medical community, area hospitals, The American Red Cross, local universities, media partners and The Savannah Mall. The Red Cross will have their bloodmobile onsite.

“Awareness Month is an opportunity to increase the public’s understanding of blood cancers and encourage people to support the funding of research to find cures and education programs to help patients have the best possible outcomes throughout their cancer experience,” said Dick Brown, Executive Director of the Georgia Chapter of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Since its inception in 1949, LLS has invested more than $814 million in research to find cures and better therapies. LLS supports investigators’ efforts to find new molecular targets for treatment and potential immunotherapies, and helps them translate their laboratory findings into more effective therapies for patients.

Its Therapy Acceleration Program (TAP) is a bold initiative to advance therapies with strong prospect, providing near-term benefit to patients diagnosed with blood cancers.

Remarkable progress has been made in treating patients with blood cancers, with survival rates for many having doubled or tripled, and in some cases quadrupled since LLS was founded in 1949. Survival rates for children with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood cancer, have risen over the past 40 years from 3% to approximately 90% today; Hodgkin lymphoma patient survival rates have doubled to 88% since the 1960s, and survival rates have increased from 25% in the mid-seventies to 41% for all myeloma patients, and patients diagnosed in the last decade had a 50% improvement in overall survival. The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is a beacon of help and guidance to those touched by blood cancer and each September LLS observes Leukemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma Awareness Month, to shed light on these diseases and let the public know that there are resources available for blood cancer patients and their families.

LLS’s web site – www.lls.org is the definitive resource for information about blood cancers and its Information Resource Center (IRC) is a call center staffed by master’s level social workers, nurses and health educators who provide information, support and resources to patients and their families/caregivers. IRC information specialists can be reached at (800) 955-4572, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET, or via email at infocenter@lls.org.


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