The Lance Armstrong Foundation's $1.7 million grant will establish a LIVESTRONG™ Survivorship Center of Excellence at the Hutchinson Center and make cancer recovery a smoother ride

BY CHRISTI BALL LOSO

Ellis Corets.

Ellis Corets clearly remembers the shock of learning he had prostate cancer and the difficulty of choosing among treatment options that could profoundly impact his quality of life. "There was surgery, radiation, radioactive seeding, or watching and waiting, all of which had long-term implications," he said. "It was a lousy decision to have to make."

Corets chose surgery and was able to cope with the side effects, yet he felt ill-prepared for the road ahead. "Your doctors are focused on getting rid of the cancer, but no one tells you what's going to happen later," he said. "You're really in the dark. The one thing that would help would be information from those who've gone before you." Corets, an avid cyclist, did the best he could with the information he had and resumed riding a few months after his surgery.

Corets is among the growing number of cancer survivors as advances in cancer detection and treatment during the last 30 years have translated into a tripling of survivors. Many are left with health risks and lingering effects such as memory problems, limited mobility, sexual dysfunction and infertility. Long-term survivors like Corets have become more vocal about the need for support to help patients make the transition to a normal life.

Research to improve the outcomes of cancer survivors and develop new models of care for them is a major goal of the Lance Armstrong Foundation's recent $1.7 million pledge to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center for a LIVESTRONG™ Survivorship Center of Excellence. It's part of a growing network of LIVESTRONG Survivorship Centers located at National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers across the country. Working together, the partners will leverage their individual contributions to enhance the overall impact on survivorship issues.

Armstrong, the seven-time Tour de France cycling champion and cancer survivor, announced the grant while in Seattle last December. The five-year grant will enable the Hutchinson Center to develop a state-of-the-art, comprehensive cancer-survivorship program, which will provide clinical care, patient education and access to research to the growing number of pediatric and adult cancer patients who have been treated through conventional therapies or bone-marrow and stem-cell transplantation. It will integrate the Hutchinson Center's existing cancer-survivor programs and expand the scope of services and research for survivors.

"We expect that this generous grant from the Lance Armstrong Foundation will greatly enhance our ability and capacity to serve patients throughout the Northwest," said the Hutchinson Center's Dr. Debra Friedman, who will serve as director of the LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center of Excellence. "We are very excited about the possibilities this grant represents, as well as the huge potential benefits to the increasing numbers of cancer survivors."

The LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center of Excellence will be designed primarily to serve the pressing needs of patients and their families. The grant also will fund research to identify and implement best practices to improve the quality of life for cancer survivors.

Dr. Karen Syrjala, head of the Hutchinson Center's Biobehavioral Sciences group, will serve as the LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center's co-director. Included under the LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center's umbrella will be the Long-Term Follow-Up program for transplant patients, directed by Dr. Paul Martin, with Dr. Jean Sanders in charge of pediatric patients; the After Cancer Care Ends Survivorship Starts program for childhood cancer survivors, directed by Friedman; the Prostate Cancer Clinical Research Program, under the leadership of Dr. Tia Higano; and the Women's Wellness Center for breast- and ovarian-cancer survivors, co-directed by Drs. Julie Gralow and Benjamin Greer.

"We had these four programs serving cancer survivors of different populations; the LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center now draws them all together and allows us to expand services for adult survivors of pediatric malignancies and all general medical oncology patients," Friedman said. "The Lance Armstrong Foundation was looking for the greatest diversity and range of ages of those served. What we already had in place is exactly what the foundation was looking to fund and expand upon."

The primary facility for patients and families will be housed on the Hutchinson Center campus at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, the patient-treatment partnership of the Hutchinson Center, UW Medicine and Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center.

If you would like to support the LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center of Excellence or other programs at the Hutchinson Center, please contact us at (206) 667-4399 or www.fhcrc.org/donating/. The LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center can be reached at (866) 543-4272

Expanding our reach

Part of the Lance Armstrong Foundation's grant to the Hutchinson Center will expand services to underserved populations throughout the Northwest. Additional locations will be established at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, Sacred Heart Children's Hospital/Providence Cancer Center in Spokane, Wash., and Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage. Through these affiliates, the Hutchinson Center will provide cancer-survivor care and research to inner-city, non-English speaking, and Alaska Native and Native American populations. In addition, the grant will enable the Hutchinson Center to develop and test models of care to reach cancer survivors unable to travel to a LIVESTRONG Survivorship Center of Excellence or one of its affiliates.