ASH Abstracts Are Here!

Before I get the Cancer Nerd stuff, I want to remind you about the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation survey that I linked to in my last post. 

The survey is about how patients with FL make decisions about treatment. It should take about 10 minutes to complete, and will provide valuable information that hopefully will be presented at a medical conference next year, where it can be seen by oncologists and researchers and those who manufacture the treatments. 

This link will take you directly to the survey.

UPDATE: The FLF is getting a good response from this survey from patients, but they'd love to hear fro more caregivers -- a spouse or partner or family member or friend who helps you as a patient. If you're a patient, could you please share the link with your caregiver and ask them to take it? Caregivers don't get enough credit for how important they are in the decision-making process. This is a great opportunity for their voice to be heard.

 Thanks for considering it.

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Now, back to that Cancer Nerd stuff.

The abstracts for the ASH meeting are now available!

ASH is the American Society of Hematology, and their annual meeting is the largest gathering of blood cancer specialists in the United States. It takes place in early December every year. This year is it December 7-10.

Much of the meeting involves presentations of research on blood cancers and other blood-related diseases. (It's in San Diego, California, so I assume some of the meeting involves brightly-colored drinks with little umbrellas in them, too.)  About a month before the meeting, ASH published the abstracts -- summaries of what the presentations will be about, so those in attendance can plan out which sessions they want to go to. 

Every year, I like to go through the abstracts related to Follicular Lymphoma and preview some of the more interesting ones. My quick search says there are 329 abstracts for Follicular Lymphoma. You can see them yourself here.  

Some years, there isn't much that's very interesting. But this year, even a quick look at the titles is getting me excited. 

First, though, a few things that I am not seeing in my quick look at the abstracts.

First, I'm not seeing any game-changers. Some years there's a presentation that is so important that they move it to a very big room so they can fit all of the people who want to hear about it. (The last one of those for FL was when they discussed the results of the R-squared trial.) I don't see any of those this year. And that's OK.

I'm also not seeing too many new treatments. There are a few, but not as many as some years. These re usually reports of phase 1 and 2 clinical trials, which means they are very early in their process. They're always exciting, but don't always play out as one would hope, and they aren't heard from again. I do see a few, though, and I'll try to highlight the exciting ones.

What I am seeing is a lot of research on treatments that have already been approved. Some are "real world" studies, looking at a treatment outside of a clinical trial, so there are fewer restrictions on who can actually receive the treatment. Some are combination studies, looking at treatments that have been approved on their own to see how they work together. Some are long-term follow-ups to approved treatments.

Those kinds of presentations are really interesting, too, because they teach us more about the treatment and how effective it is for certain patients. They can be less exciting than a presentation for a treatment that hasn't been approved yet, and that comes with the promise of big change. But those less-exciting presentations often give us incremental change. No big leaps forward, but they do move us forward. And that's a great thing, too.

I'm also seeing some presentations about Quality of Life issues. That's excellent -- researchers are paying attention to it, and oncologists will be hearing about it. There's more to treatment than just how effective it is. There's everything that happens when we live our lives outside of the treatment room. That matters a lot.

I see a couple of presentations about watching and waiting that I'm excited about (and might start off with, since I'm always interested in it).

Finally, there's an "Education Program" about FL that;s in a big room. It's not presenting anything new, just educating oncologists about what the latest is for Follicular Lymphoma. There's one presentation during the session called "Follicular Lymphoma: In Pursuit of a Functional Cure."  The description of the presentation, from Dr. Judith Trotman, and Australian oncologist, says "In this talk, Dr. Trotman will provide the survival data to equip clinicians in framing optimistic initial conversations with most patients at diagnosis of advanced stage FL. She outlines the expectations of longevity and a"functional cure" for many." A functional cure is the idea that many of us will get a treatment that lasts so long that we don't need another, even if we still have some evidence of the disease still hanging around and remaining stable.

That one looks great, and I hope I can get access to a recording of it after it is over. Unfortunately, ASH doesn't provide special registration rates for independent cancer advocates the way ASCO does, so I'd have to pay for access. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll post the video for free someplace.

So look for some interesting ASH previews in the next few weeks. Always a special time.

(And don't forget that FLF survey! Caregivers, too!)

More to come very soon.