More from Patient Power on Follicular Lymphoma

OK, I lied --  Patient Power isn't done with their video series of interviews from the International Workshop on NHL. Here are two more videos featuring Dr. Wyndham Wilson of the National Cancer Institute (he was in the video on new treatments for FL that I linked to a couple of days ago).

 The titles of the videos pretty much tell the story:

1) Learn the Signs and Symptoms of Follicular Lymphoma -- I think most of us know what this one is going to say. We (or someone we love) has kind of been there already. If you're reading this because you think you might have lymphoma but you're not sure -- go see your doctor.

2) Watch and Wait or Continuous Therapy for Follicular Lymphoma: Where Are We Now? -- Lots of us know the basics of this one, too -- after a diagnosis, if things are slow-growing, there are no symptoms showing, and there might now be reason to treat, is it better to hold off on treatment, or better to start right away? Dr. Wilson gives a little history of how Watch and Wait came about (in the pre-Rituxan era, before we had so many options, particularly options with relatively mild side effects). Wilson rightly points out that the patient's emotional needs are a factor, and looks ahead with some optimism about newer treatments and how they might be combined in the future. things will look a lot different in 10 years.

As far as I can tell, that's it for the Patient Power videos on Follicular Lymphoma from the iwNHL workshop. I could certainly be wrong.

Andrew Schorr, who founded Patient Power, deserves a lot of credit for bringing so much information to patients, directly from the mouths of the researchers and doctors who are doing such great work for us. He likes to sign off with "Remember, knowledge can be the best medicine of all."

Truer words are rarely spoken.