January 10, 2017

Friends,

After ASH, the CLL Society hosted a CLL Patient Educational Forum at City of Hope to share the latest data from that meeting. It was great to see so many of you there! After the meeting, I had the chance to interview Stephen Feldman, the facilitator of the COH CLL Support Group about his experiences. You can view it here.

Thank you to those who have already participated in our Reader Poll. We would like to get more responses so we would appreciate it if you can take 2 minutes to answer our 5 question survey in the Ask &Tell section to help us understand patient’s experiences with testing prior to treatment. You can access the survey here. Thank you so much!

Patient Support Group Meetings this week

Tuesday, January 10^th in Orange, CA: The Orange County CLL Support Group at 7:00 PM. More information can be found here.

Monday, January 16^th in Duarte, CA: The City of Hope CLL Support Group will be meeting at 7:00 PM. More information can be found here.

If you’re interested in joining a CLL-specific support group in your city, go to our home page and click on the interest survey for your city. Thanks!

Upcoming Patient Education Meeting

• Monday, January 30^th from 6 – 7:30 PM, John Byrd will present Ask the Expert: The Treatment Landscape for Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. This event is available both in person and streaming. Pre-registration is required. Visit https://treatmentlandscapecll.eventbrite.com to register or for more information, please call JamesCare for Life at 614-293-6428. Access the flyer here.
• Saturday, February 18^th from 7:30 AM to 2:45 PM: The Lymphoma Research Foundation will be hosting Lymphoma Workshop: Understanding Lymphoma Basics and Current Treatment Options which will include disease-specific breakout sessions. There is no cost to attend, but registration is required. Find out more information here.

Please continue to enjoy the articles and interviews from the Q4 2016 issue of The CLL Tribune:

• Read/view an interview with Dr. John Pagel about maintenance therapy in CLL from ASH 2016 in Conference Coverage.
• Read answers to reader questions by Dr. Rick Furman in Ask the Doctor
• Learn about low blood counts that occur when your body attacks its own blood cells in Brian Koffman’s article Autoimmune Problems in CLL found in The Basics Section
• In Beyond the Basics, learn more about the Richter Syndrome in a patient-friendly article written by Dr. Adrian Wiestner from the National Institutes of Health.
• Learn new facts about CLL in the Did You Know section
• In Living Well with CLL section, you can read about:
  • Ibrutinib for Watch and Wait? My Story
  • Watch and Wait: Professor Chris Fegan from Wales “GETS” CLL
  • What to Do While You Watch and Wait: A Patient’s Perspective
  • What You Should Know as a CLL Caregiver
  • You Never Know: Twenty Years since Stage IV and Counting

In the meantime….

Stay strong.

We are all in this together.

Brian Koffman, MD