Seeptember is Blood Cancer Awareness Month

During Blood Cancer Awareness Month this September, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is reminding everyone that while breakthrough therapies are saving lives, work still needs to be done to find cures – not someday, but today.

Thanks to LLS-funded research, new safe and effective treatments, once unimaginable, are saving lives today. Cures for many patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and Hodgkin lymphoma have been achieved, and the five-year survival rate for children with ALL jumped 3 percent in 1964 to approximately 90 percent in 2014. The survival rate for myeloma patients more than tripled in the past decade. 

And, advances are far-reaching. From 2000 through 2013, almost 40 percent of new anti-cancer drugs approved by FDA were first approved (or developed) for blood cancer patients – more first-ever approvals than for any other group of cancers – and many of these were advanced funding from LLS. Some therapies are even helping patients with other cancers and other serious, nonmalignant diseases. 

But despite the advances, work still needs to be done to find cures. Every three minutes, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with a blood cancer, and more than 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with, or in remission from, a blood cancer.  Unlike with other cancers, you cannot screen for or prevent most blood cancers.  

About one third of patients with a blood cancer still do not survive even five years after their diagnosis, which is why more funding is needed to bring better therapies to patients, and faster. 

LLS’s goal is to raise $300,000 dollars in 30 days. To donate, please visit https://donate.lls.org/lls/donate or contact Mika Harding, Director of Donor Development & Special Events, at (610) 276-3190 or Mika.Harding@lls.org.

To learn more about our patient services, please contact Ilana Benyosef, Senior Manager for Patient Education & Access, at (610) 276-3199 or Ilana.Benyosef@lls.org, or visit www.lls.org/epa

For more information about getting involved with LLS, please call our Eastern PA Chapter at (610) 238-0360 or visit our website at www.lls.org/epa.

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