Center For Survivorship And Outcomes

We are committed to lifelong follow-up of hematology patients treated at City of Hope; this includes one of the largest cohorts (more than 11,000) of long-term hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) survivors in active follow-up.

The center incorporates novel real-time data collection on health outcomes during and decades after completion of therapy, allowing us to understand the short-term and long-term health challenges faced by our survivors. This information is then used to inform clinicians on novel treatment strategies, risk stratification and long-term monitoring of our patients.

Highlights

The goal of the Center for Survivorship and Outcomes is to improve the overall quality of life for survivors of hematologic (blood, bone marrow, lymph node) cancers.
Looking to incorporate mobile health (mHealth) technology for remote monitoring of health outcomes in long-term survivors, providing health care practitioners and researchers with real-time information on patients’ well-being. These platforms can be used for early detection of chronic disease and for implementation of interventions to avert the adverse consequences of therapy.
Uses insights from this survivorship research to modify treatment plans for patients with blood cancers to reduce the long-term side effects of their cancer therapy
One of the largest cohorts (>11,000) of long-term hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) survivors in active follow-up

Novel Approaches

Our established long-term, follow-up platform allows investigators the opportunity to implement innovative studies to understand the pathophysiology of heath complications in our patients. Specifically, we utilize state-of-the art imaging and blood biomarkers to detect health complications early on, allowing us to implement interventions to avert premature onset of cardiovascular disease, second cancers and endocrine disorders. Finally, our established blood biobank is a resource for researchers wanting to understand the role of germline risk factors in the severity and prevalence of health complications after treatment.

Patient Experience

Our overall mission is to improve the lives of our patients well beyond the immediate treatment period. Key to this mission is patient education and empowerment, providing them with information about the treatments they have received and the recommended health monitoring practices they should employ. This is done at the individual level or as part of regular patient education seminars. Ultimately, the more engaged our survivors are, the more we are able to help them achieve their full potential in the years or decades after completion of therapy.

Working for Tomorrow, Today

Our team is motivated by the knowledge that the work we do today may help the lives of patients undergoing treatment tomorrow. We are a multidisciplinary group of researchers and care providers consisting of hematologists, pharmacologists, epidemiologists, family practitioners and subspecialists, working together across a variety of research and clinical care platforms. We have an enthusiastic team of young researchers who embrace the importance of patient-centered research, treating each of our research participants with the dignity and respect they would offer to a family member. City of Hope’s core values of compassion, service with a sense of urgency, integrity, intellectual curiosity, excellence and collaboration are engrained in our culture and form the core principles that inspire us each day.

Leadership

As a physician, Saro Armenian, D.O., M.P.H., provides care to patients who are newly diagnosed with hematologic malignancies. As a researcher, he is able to facilitate the development of novel research aimed at improving the lives of patients undergoing treatment. As a physician-researcher, he is able to collaborate with clinicians and researchers at City of Hope and at medical centers throughout the country, establishing innovative studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and the American Cancer Society. The collaborative nature of this work allows rapid dissemination of knowledge that will inform healthcare providers and patients alike.

The Future

The growing population of long-term cancer survivors makes it imperative to examine how emerging mHealth platforms can be used to monitor our patients long-term. Through an ongoing collaboration with the California Institute of Technology, we are examining strategies to integrate mHealth technology for remote monitoring of cardiovascular health in our survivors, providing clinicians and researchers with real-time information on our patients’ well-being.

These platforms can be used for early detection of disease and for implementation of interventions to avert the adverse consequences of therapy. With the advent of new integrative electronic health record systems, we have the opportunity to utilize advances in computer sciences (e.g., natural language processing) to study health outcomes in hundreds of thousands of patients at a fraction of the time it takes to study them today.

This has the potential to not only capture health information more rapidly, but to share this knowledge with researchers and practitioners who are developing the next generation of therapeutic clinical trials. Finally, we have a number of studies examining the genetic underpinnings of adverse health outcomes after therapy, allowing us to develop personalized approaches to care delivery.