CancerCare partnered with L’Oreal Paris and Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF) to create a free telephone counseling and referral service for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer. 

Launched one year ago, The L’Oreal Paris OCRF Hopeline has proven to be a great source of support for many women facing an ovarian cancer diagnosis. The Hopeline is staffed by professional oncology social workers and operates Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

Call the L’Oréal Paris OCRF Hope Line at 877-OV-HOPE-1 (877-684-6731).

CancerCare responded to the needs of men facing prostate cancer by publishing two new fact sheets: Caring for Your Bones When You Have Prostate Cancer and Prostate Cancer: What You Should Know About Screening and Diagnosis. 

For more resources on these cancers, including additional publications, support groups and archived connect education workshops, visit the diagnoses pages on our website.

Traditional care has focused mainly on treating cancer as a medical condition in which emotional concerns and issues resulting from the diagnosis are often downplayed or not addressed at all. This is changing, as more and more oncologists and other health care providers acknowledge the integral role of counseling and emotional support for patients, their families, and caregivers.

Oncology social workers provide critical support to patients, notes CancerCare’s Win Boerckel, who is quoted in the article;  they can “help people normalize the experience of having cancer, so they can answer questions from their children or get to their next chemo appointment.”

Read the article, “Surviving the First 100 Days,” in the debut issue of LIVESTRONG Quarterly , beginning on page 22.

When Suzanne Lindley was diagnosed with colorectal cancer and informed she had six months to live, she and her family moved to the country, where she’d always dreamed of living.  Twelve years later, Suzanne leads an amazingly active life, traveling all around the country as a colorectal cancer advocate.

She credits her current quality of life to hitchhiking treatments, as well as to her CancerCare social worker Keith Lyons, who provided her with essential support and motivation through individual counseling and a support group.  “[Keith] said I could see cancer as a death sentence or I could celebrate the fact that I was very much alive and experience now,” Suzanne recalls.

The complete article is available here.

CancerCare offers online, telephone and face-to-face support groups that connect you with people who are in a similar situation. All support groups are free and led by professional oncology social workers who are experienced with cancer-related issues and concerns.

Genentech will donate $5 for each survey completed to programs and services designed specifically for metastatic breast cancer patients.  Survey results will be used to produce video and media materials that will be distributed on Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day (October 13).

The survey is open and available online until August 31. Please visit facesofmbc.org or text MBC to 74471 to share your story.

CancerCare’s ASCO-Sponsored Patient Advocacy Booth allowed our representatives to interact with health care professionals from across the country — and around the world — to promote our free support services for anyone affected by cancer.

ASCO President Douglas W. Blaney, MD, with CancerCare’s Monica Cavazos Mendez

Complete ASCO Annual Meeting coverage, including research summaries, podcasts, and video can be found on ASCO’s website.

CancerCare’s publication, Your Guide to the Latest Research and Treatments: Highlights from ASCO 2010, will be available soon.  Please stay posted for updates!

Each of the three studies are seeking participants, who will receive a variety of  types of  educational information about their diagnosis, and will then be asked to participate in two brief telephone interviews with researchers over a period of nine months.  All information is completely confidential.

Healing Choice for Prostate Cancer is for men who have been recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, but have not yet begun any treatment. The goal is to help men decide on the treatment that’s right for them.

Healing Choices for Women with Breast Cancer is for women who have been recently diagnosed with breast cancer, but who have not yet begun any treatment. The study’s purpose is to determine the best way to provide treatment information to women, and whether the information helped them in making decisions about their treatment.

Pathways to Recovery after Breast Cancer Treatment is for women who are just completing treatment for breast cancer or have completed treatment within the past six months. The goal is to find out the best way to help women get information about life after breast cancer treatment.

To find out if you are eligible to participate in any of these studies, please call 1-866-258-7981.

CancerCare offers free, professional support services to anyone affected by breast cancer or prostate cancer.  People affected by either diagnosis may qualify to receive up to $10,000 per year in co-payment assistance through the CancerCare Co-Payment Assistance Foundation.

Scott’s sharing of his inspirational story, a story that includes triumphs over childhood illness, testicular cancer and a brain tumor, was a highlight of the ceremony. He both charmed and moved the crowd with his trademark enthusiasm and tremendous passion for cancer advocacy, especially concerning cancer and children.

From L to R: Diane Blum, CEO of the Lymphoma Research Foundation and former Executive Director of CancerCare; Helen H. Miller, CEO of CancerCare; Scott Hamilton

The gala, which took place at New York City’s Chelsea Piers, was a fantastically fun evening and a great success. Thanks to the generosity of our donors and supporters, ticket sales and auction bidding raised nearly half a million dollars in support of the CancerCare for Kids program.

Scott launched The Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative to promote cancer awareness provide information about cancer and support to patients. The initiative has raised over $10 million for cancer research and education. Please visit the organization’s website to learn more.

CancerCare for Kids offers free, professional support services such as individualized counseling and support groups for children and teens affected by cancer.

Continued developments in targeted therapy are leading more oncology researchers to investigate personalized treatments for lung cancer. It’s important to note that lung cancer was one of the first cancers in which targeted therapy was found to help a segment of people dealing with late-stage lung cancer. Today’s newer targeted therapies offer the promise of improved treatment outcomes for many more types of lung cancer. For more information, read CancerCare’s free publications,  A New Class of Drugs: Targeted Treatments for Cancer, Progress in the Treatment of Lung Cancer, and Your Guide to the Latest Cancer Research and Treatments (Lung Cancer).

Unfortunately, people coping with lung cancer are still saddled with a significant emotional burden arising from the stigma of the diagnosis, which can have a negative impact on the views of even the professionals themselves who treat lung cancer patients. The stigma also exacerbates emotional stress among family members of the lung cancer patient, especially when that person has a smoking history. And, patients themselves often react with guilt and shame to their lung cancer diagnosis which may interfere with their doing all they can to comply with their treatment. 

A great deal of work needs to be done to address the social stigma of lung cancer so that the diagnosis, like all other cancers, can finally be acknowledged as a “no fault” medical event for patients. Because the simple fact is, no one deserves lung cancer.

Learn more about CancerCare’s free, professional support services for lung cancer patients and their loved ones.

Much has been written recently about the positive impact of HPV vaccinations in preventing cervical cancer. The human papilloma virus, or HPV, is the most common sexually transmitted infection, usually occurring when a person first becomes sexually active. There are many HPV strains, which can be spread simultaneously; some are related to genital warts, others to cancers. HPV has been found to be responsible for a majority of cervical cancers and is also implicated as the cause of some oropharyngeal cancers, about half of all penile cancers, and most anal cancers. Although the body’s immune system clears up most HPV infections, about 10% remain, which can then lead to a disease state.

Yet, controversy persists about the effectiveness of HPV vaccinations as a preventive measure against cancer, particularly cervical cancer. The debate involves how the vaccine is marketed and the risk of side effects outweighing its potential to protect girls and young women from developing cancer later in life. Some critics accuse the pharmaceutical industry of creating a “market out of thin air” and question the ethics of claiming that HPV vaccines guard against cancer, as opposed to being a vaccine against a sexually transmitted disease.  The debate continues.

These were the issues weighing on the mind of my caller that day. Often, the kind of counseling an oncology social worker provides is supporting people caught in the midst of this kind of debate, weighing conflicting and sometimes contradictory information, and then helping that individual decide the best course of action to take for his or her situation. This is so true of this topic. We can help you get the information you need to make the right decision for you. Call us at 1-800-813-HOPE (4673).

[NOTE: On Sept. 9, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel of independent medical experts endorsed the use of a second vaccine -- Cevarix -- to protect against cervical cancer in women; and to expand the use of the first approved vaccine, Gardasil, in preventing genital warts in males. The panel's endorsement is expected to lead to the FDA's approval of Cevarix. Gardasil was approved in 2006. Source: The Wall Street Journal]

William Goeren, LCSW-R, is a professional oncology social worker and director of quality assurance of the social services division of CancerCare.

Cut through the confusion by going to http://www.cancer.net. The official website of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the world’s  foremost organization of cancer physicians, cancer.net provides easy-to-understand, up-to-date, reliable cancer information, reviewed and approved by oncology experts.

The site provides comprehensive information about diagnoses by cancer type, treatments, survivorship issues, policy and advocacy, and much more. CancerCare Executive Director Diane Blum, MSW serves as editor-in-chief of cancer.net; watch the new video on the cancer.net homepage in which she and several of the nation’s top oncologists talk about this important resource, relied on by patients and health care providers alike.