The ASTCT Survivorship Special Interest Group (SIG) had yet another successful annual meeting during the TCT Meetings in Houston, Texas. The meeting growth underscores the growing interest in discussing the survivorship and late effect needs of hematopoietic stem cell transplant survivors and their caregivers. The SIG was fortunate to have patient stakeholders who attended the meeting, provided input and insight, and discussed the important role of engaging patients and caregivers in ongoing efforts focused on survivorship care.
The meeting began with brief reports from collaborating groups including the Palliative and Supportive Care SIG and the newly established Biobehavioral Sciences Meeting SIG. Collaborating groups provided a brief update regarding the work of their respective groups and underscored the importance of ongoing collaboration with the Survivorship SIG.
To highlight ongoing collaborations during the past year, Jaleel Mohamed presented on the efforts to address rehabilitation and physical therapy needs during transplant. This work has led to a White paper report examining the role of physical therapy pre and post hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, which was recently published in Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation. The Survivorship SIG also collaborated with the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP)/Be The Match to establish a Survivorship Program Directory. Impressively, data was collected from all transplant centers in the United States (100 percent response rate) to assess the current availability and infrastructure for adult and pediatric survivorship care programs. A website is being developed on the NMDP/Be The Match public website that incorporates the provided information on the survivorship programs. The next steps will focus on communicating and providing access to the new directory to patients, families, and the transplant community.
In an effort to promote high-quality research in survivorship, the SIG also reviewed and provided written comments on proposals that were submitted for consideration to be presented at the meeting. A total of four projects were selected for presentation at the Survivorship SIG with topics ranging from longitudinal studies to examine outcomes and late effects of older adults undergoing autologous and allogeneic stem cell transplantation, the association between opioid use and transplant outcomes, and utilizing innovated telecommunication system to monitor the needs of patients with chronic graft-versus-host disease. Additionally, the Survivorship SIG reviewed progress on two prior proposals that were presented during the Survivorship SIG meeting in 2017 focused on return to work and assessment of fertility in transplant survivors.
If you are interested in survivorship care clinically or from a research perspective, please join us and become a member of the ASBMT Survivorship SIG. For more information, contact Anna Hawkshead at ahawkshead@astct.org.