Tag Archive for: friends

Do AML Patients Receive Allo or Auto Stem Cell Transplant?

Do AML Patients Receive Allo or Auto Stem Cell Transplant? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What type of stem cell transplant do AML patients receive? Expert Dr. Sara Taveras Alam from UTHealth Houston explains stem cell transplant for AML care and advice to help patients locate a bone marrow donor match.

[ACT]IVATION Tip

“…encourage family members and friends to enlist on the national and international available donor registries. I believe that when a patient gets diagnosed with AML, everyone in their immediate circle wants to help, and I tend to see family members and friends offer their bone marrow for transplant purposes. The likelihood of a friend or a distant relative being a match is very low. We know that siblings may have a high chance of being a match, parents or kids may be a half-match by definition, so there’s a higher chance of some unrelated person on the registry being a match to the patient than a distant relative or friend.”

Download Resource Guide | Descargar guía de recursos

See More from [ACT]IVATED AML

Related Resources:

How Can AML Patients Benefit From Shared Decision-Making?

How Can AML Patients Benefit From Shared Decision-Making?

Advancing Equity | Research Initiatives in AML Disparities Among Black and Latinx Populations

Advancing Equity | Research Initiatives in AML Disparities Among Black and Latinx Populations

How Do AML Patients and Outcomes Differ by Population Groups?

How Do AML Patients and Outcomes Differ by Population Groups?

Transcript: 

Lisa Hatfield:

When you mention a stem cell transplant, are those allogeneic stem cell transplants where they receive a donor’s stem cells, or are they the autologous where you take some of their stem cells at a certain point and then give them back to the patient?

Dr. Sara Taveras Alam:

So for patients with acute leukemia who require a stem cell transplant, it is an allogeneic stem cell transplant, so it does have to be a transplant from a matched donor, and the first pool of possible donors tend to be the patient’s siblings. If they have brothers or sisters from the same mom and dad, those are the possible first-line donors and are tested to see if they’re a match to the patient, and second to that, then the transplant institutions look into a donor registry.

So my activation tip for that question is to encourage family members and friends to enlist on the national and international available donor registries. I believe that when a patient gets diagnosed with AML, everyone in their immediate circle wants to help, and I tend to see family members and friends offer their bone marrow for transplant purposes. The likelihood of a friend or a distant relative being a match is very low.

We know that siblings may have a high chance of being a match, parents or kids may be a half-match by definition, so there’s a higher chance of some unrelated person on the registry being a match to the patient than a distant relative or friend. However, we could always pay it forward, and if we encourage our friends and family to enlist on these registries, it is very beneficial for our population.

Share Your Feedback About [ACT]IVATED AML

Who Is on a Patient’s CLL Care Team?

Who Is on a CLL Patient’s Care Team? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Who are the members on a chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) patient’s care team? Dr. Matthew Davids explains the members of the healthcare team – and shares advice for ensuring the patient receives complete information for optimal care.

Dr. Matthew Davids is Director of Clinical Research in the Division of Lymphoma at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Learn more about Dr. Davids here.

See More from Engage CLL


Related Resources:

 

An Overview of CLL Treatment Types

Transcript:

Katherine:

When a person is diagnosed with CLL they have a whole healthcare team. Who’s typically on that team?

Dr. Davids:

It’s definitely a multidisciplinary team.

Usually there’s an oncologist-hematologist who’s leading the team as a physician, but there’s a very large team of other people who are involved, whether it’s an advanced practice person such as a nurse practitioner or a physician’s assistant. They’re often very closely involved with the day-to-day patient care. There’s nurse navigators in some places that can help with getting access to these novel agents and with looking into clinical trial opportunities. There are pharmacy folks who are very helpful sometimes in checking in on side effects, and advising on dosing, and so forth.

That’s more on the provider side of things. But, of course, the care team really includes the caregivers for the patient, whether it’s family members or friends, who are really a crucial part of this. The field is very complicated, and one of the challenges with COVID recently is that I’ve always invited family members and friends to come to visits with patients, because I do think it’s helpful to have many people listening. And that’s been hard because we’ve had to restrict visitors usually to either no visitors or one visitor because of COVID precautions.

Even if that’s the case, you can still have people dial in by phone or use technologies like FaceTime to try to have them there with you, because I think having that extra set of ears can be helpful as you hear all this information coming at you from your oncologist.