Notwithstanding the vast expenditure of effort devoted to public education on cancer prevention, cancer remains highly unpredictable and, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), approximately 14 million new cases are diagnosed and 8.2 million related deaths recorded annually around the world, with the number of new cases expected to rise by about 70 percent over the next two decades.
When cancer is diagnosed, a critical factor in treatment success is the length of time required to organize a patient response plan. To address this, PlatformQ Health is launching a new online
education platform called CancerCoachLive, designed to educate and empower newly diagnosed cancer patients as to the challenges they will be facing in treating and managing their condition.
Developed in partnership with The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), the inaugural CancerCoachLive online event will focus on non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas (NHL), titled “Patient Education on B-Cell Non-Hodgkin Lymphomas from Diagnosis to Treatment.” The event takes place Thursday, Aug. 4, from 2:00 – 3:00 pm EST. Registration is required and available through this link to the program.
About 70,000 people annually are diagnosed with NHL in the U.S. alone, and each of them needs to understand which of the approximately 60 NHL subtypes they’re dealing with to understand the treatment they will be facing. Of the two NHL major subtypes, roughly 85% of cases will be B-cell lymphomas, and the LLS notes that educating B-cell lymphoma patients and their caregivers can improve treatment outcomes and a patient’s quality of life.
During this live event patients and caregivers will have an opportunity to learn from and interact with Matthew 
Lunning, DO, an assistant professor in the Internal Medicine Division of Oncology & Hematology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center; Katherine Stephans, NP, an Adult Care Nurse Practitioner at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston; and Karen Demairo of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Topics addressed will include understanding the implications of a B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis, what tests and treatments to expect, what to do between doctor visits and treatments in terms of self-care and information resources. The program will enable lymphoma patients and their caregivers to discuss and share questions and experiences, and obtain advice via CancerCoachLive’s virtual learning channel, which will be archived and available on demand subsequent to the online session.
PlatformQ Health has experience with direct patient education through its award-winning Diabetic Retinopathy programs. However, the company’s history is mainly in leading data-centric online continuing medical education sessions for clinicians. “We have seen enormous benefit to our clinician community who need easy access to the highest quality Continuing Medical Education,” says PlatformQ Health’s CEO and founder, Robert Rosenbloom, in a press release. “We are excited to bring the same rigorous standard of education to our patient programs at CancerCoachLive.”
“Education is one of the best tools we can provide to our patients. By educating them about their disease and treatments, they are able to make better decisions throughout their cancer journey,” adds Demairo, the society’s executive director, Education & Integration.
Collaborating with a long-established advocacy organization like LLS will help CancerCoachLive meet newly diagnosed patients’ critical need for reliable education resources.
CancerCoachLive is being funded by an educational grant from the Abbvie subsidiary Pharmacyclics LLC, and Janssen Biotech, and a grant from Genentech.
Sources:
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS)
PlatformQ Health
CancerCoachLive
World Health Organization (WHO)
