Hopeful Warrior Blog Named Top Lymphoma Blog to Follow in 2021

Whether you’re navigating cancer, or caring for someone who is, blogs can be a valuable resource for support and information.

Feedspot recently selected the Hopeful Warrior Blog as one of the top lymphoma blogs to follow in 2021. The ranking was based on a variety of factors including relevancy, post frequency, social media engagement and more.

Top Lymphoma Blogs

 1. Lymphoma Action

Read the latest news and views from Lymphoma Action. Lymphoma Action is the UK's only charity dedicated to lymphoma, the fifth most common cancer. We've been providing in-depth, expert information for 35 years, helping thousands of people affected by lymphoma.

2. New Developments in Lymphoma

We bring the most promising new drugs and treatment approaches to people living with cancer, and our researchers have contributed to the development and FDA approval of nearly all of the recently available lymphoma therapies. Whether you are someone living with lymphoma, a family member or friend looking for more information, or a health care provider looking to refer a patient to a clinical trial, we hope our website will be a helpful resource.

3. The Hopeful Warrior Blog

 The Hopeful Warrior blog is a platform to support and raise awareness for those battling Lymphoma and other blood cancers. In addition to sharing the author’s personal experience with cancer, the Hopeful Warrior Blog also covers various psychological, spiritual, and motivational concepts and offers coping strategies tips for individuals and families fighting cancer.

4. Hodgkin's Lymphoma Awareness Ireland

This blog begins with the diagnoses leading to the stages and on to the therapy with remission, relapse and return to remission. The author and founder of this site Ian Doherty was diagnosed on the 14th of February 2014 with Stage 4B D5 Hodgkin's Lymphoma, he will be telling his story on this site as he continues his battle with Lymphoma.

5. Cancer Therapy Advisor - Lymphoma News

Non-Hodgkins and Hodgkins lymphoma news, research and treatment studies, clinical trials, and more for oncologists, and medical professionals.

Click here to learn more and see the complete list.

Hopeful Warrior Project

Thanks to your generous support, I donated my first set of warrior bags to Lurie Cancer Center’s Supportive Oncology Program.

Each warrior bag contains a washable and reusable draw-string bag with a pocket, as well as an infusion water bottle, and a journal to help make treatments a little more comfortable. There is also a card with more about my story and immunotherapy success and a link to a resource guide where patients can access information on clinical trials and find local support to help them cope with the mental and physical effects of treatment.

September is Blood Cancer Awareness month as well as Childhood Cancer Awareness month, so it was wonderful to be able to make such a meaningful donation during such an important month for cancer awareness.

Incredibly, on September 15th, which is also World Lymphoma Awareness Day, I learned my most recent scans showed I am still cancer-free. Being able to donate 30 warrior bags to Lurie Cancer Center was the best way to celebrate two years of remission.

 Looking forward to doing more in the future to help support adult and adolescent cancer fighters.

 If you are interested in partnering with the Hopeful Warrior Project or would like to volunteer, let’s connect!  

Hopeful Warrior Project Update

Warrior Bag from the Hopeful Warrior Project

I’ve been busy putting the finishing touches on my Warrior Bags.

As part of my Hopeful Warrior Project, I will be delivering the warrior bags to newly diagnosed cancer patients at Northwestern later this month in honor of my two-year treatment cancerversary.

Thank you to all those who sponsored a bag. Because of your generosity, I was able to put together over 30 warrior bags.

Each reusable drawstring bag contains an infusion water bottle, notebook/journal and pen, Lemonheads and information to help connect fighters to local support services.

I’m so excited about how the bags turned out and can’t wait to deliver them.

Announcing the Launch of the Hopeful Warrior Project

The Hopeful Warrior Project’s mission is to help empower patients by giving them access to the right information and local support resources when they need it the most.

The Hopeful Warrior Project is my way of giving back and helping to celebrate being two years cancer-free on May 1st.

 Each Warrior Bag will contain the following items:

·      Reusable Drawstring Bag for Treatment

·      Water Bottle

·      Intention Journal

·      Greeting Card

·      Local Resource Guide

You can see the designs and learn more about the Hopeful Warrior Project here.

I also created a fundraiser to help cover the costs associated with launching the Hopeful Warrior Project. Any left over proceeds will go to creating the Hopeful Warrior Fund that will help cover 100% of the lodging expenses for patients currently receiving treatment at Northwestern through need-based stipends.

Donate:

 https://fundly.com/the-hopeful-warrior-project

 My goal is to provide at least 30 Warrior Bags to newly diagnosed patients at Lurie Cancer Center or Anne and Robert. H. Lurie Children’s hospital as part of Northwestern’s AYA program.

 Make sure you subscribe to my Newsletter to stay up-to-date on the latest developments with the Hopeful Warrior Project.

Subscribe for News & Treatment Updates

Subscribe to the Hopeful Warrior Newsletter

Enter your email below to be notified when I post a new blog or important update about my treatment. 

Please note, once you enter your email you will receive an email to confirm your subscription. You need to click on the link in the email to be added to my email list.

I will be sending out a Weekly Warrior Roundup that recaps some of my recent blogs and other news and projects I’m currently working on.

2018 Nobel Prize in Medicine Goes to Immunotherapy Researchers

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded on Monday to James P. Allison of the United States and Tasuku Honjo of Japan for their work on unleashing the body’s immune system to attack cancer, a breakthrough that has led to an entirely new class of drugs and brought lasting remissions to many patients who had run out of options.

Their success, which came after many researchers had given up on the idea, “brought immunotherapy out from decades of skepticism,” said Dr. Jedd Wolchok, a cancer specialist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. It has, he said, “led to human applications that have affected an untold number of people’s health.”

Before Dr. Allison’s and Dr. Honjo’s discoveries, cancer treatment consisted of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and hormonal treatments. A statement from the Nobel committee hailed their accomplishments as establishing “an entirely new principle for cancer therapy.”

Earlier attempts by other researchers to recruit the immune system to fight cancer sometimes worked but more often did not. Dr. Allison and Dr. Honjo succeeded where others had failed by deciphering exactly how cells were interacting so they could fine-tune methods to control the immune system.

The checkpoint inhibitors now on the market are used for cancers of the lung, kidney, bladder, head and neck; for the aggressive skin cancer melanoma; and for Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers.

Read more…

Doctors Said Immunotherapy Would Not Cure Her Cancer. They Were Wrong.

The idea behind immunotherapy is to dismantle a molecular shield that some tumors use to avoid an attack by the body’s white blood cells.

The immune system sees these tumors as foreign — they are fueled by hundreds of genetic mutations, which drive their growth and are recognized by the body. But when white blood cells swarm in to attack the cancer cells, they bounce back, rebuffed.

Immunotherapy drugs pierce that protective shield, allowing the immune system to recognize and demolish tumor cells. But the new drugs do not work against many common cancers, that's why these results are so exciting.

Read more...

New research shows how alcohol damages DNA and increases cancer risk

Scientists have shown how alcohol damages DNA in stem cells, helping to explain why drinking increases your risk of cancer, according to research part-funded by Cancer Research UK and published in Nature today.

"While some damage occurs by chance, our findings suggest that drinking alcohol can increase the risk of this damage.” - Professor Ketan Patel

Much previous research looking at the precise ways in which alcohol causes cancer has been done in cell cultures. But in this study, researchers have used mice to show how alcohol exposure leads to permanent genetic damage.

Scientists at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (link is external), Cambridge, gave diluted alcohol, chemically known as ethanol, to mice. They then used chromosome analysis and DNA sequencing to examine the genetic damage caused by acetaldehyde, a harmful chemical produced when the body processes alcohol.

They found that acetaldehyde can break and damage DNA within blood stem cells leading to rearranged chromosomes and permanently altering the DNA sequences within these cells.

It is important to understand how the DNA blueprint within stem cells is damaged because when healthy stem cells become faulty, they can give rise to cancer.*

These new findings therefore help us to understand how drinking alcohol increases the risk of developing 7 types of cancer including common types like breast and bowel.**

Professor Ketan Patel, lead author of the study and scientist, part funded by Cancer Research UK, at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, said: “Some cancers develop due to DNA damage in stem cells. While some damage occurs by chance, our findings suggest that drinking alcohol can increase the risk of this damage.”

The study also examined how the body tries to protect itself against damage caused by alcohol. The first line of defence is a family of enzymes called aldehyde dehydrogenases (ALDH). These enzymes break down harmful acetaldehyde into acetate, which our cells can use as a source of energy.

Worldwide, millions of people, particularly those from South East Asia, either lack these enzymes or carry faulty versions of them. So, when they drink, acetaldehyde builds up which causes a flushed complexion, and also leads to them feeling unwell.

In the study, when mice lacking the critical ALDH enzyme - ALDH2 - were given alcohol, it resulted in four times as much DNA damage in their cells compared to mice with the fully functioning ALDH2 enzyme.

The second line of defence used by cells is a variety of DNA repair systems which, most of the time, allow them to fix and reverse different types of DNA damage. But they don’t always work and some people carry mutations which mean their cells aren’t able to carry out these repairs effectively.

Professor Patel added: “Our study highlights that not being able to process alcohol effectively can lead to an even higher risk of alcohol-related DNA damage and therefore certain cancers. But it’s important to remember that alcohol clearance and DNA repair systems are not perfect and alcohol can still cause cancer in different ways, even in people whose defence mechanisms are intact.”

This research was funded by Cancer Research UK, Wellcome and the Medical Research Council (MRC).

Professor Linda Bauld, Cancer Research UK’s expert on cancer prevention, said: “This thought-provoking research highlights the damage alcohol can do to our cells, costing some people more than just a hangover."

Read more...

Research Provides Treatment Breakthroughs For Lymphoma

Blood cancers, including the main types leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma, are the third leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, according to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. While there are no means of preventing or screening for most blood cancers, recent breakthroughs for lymphoma treatment are improving quality of life and survival.

Lymphomas are cancers of the lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell of the lymphatic system which play a key role in the body’s immune system. The two main types of lymphoma are Hodgkin lymphoma, in which there is a particular type of abnormal lymphocyte called a Reed-Sternberg cell in the lymph nodes, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, in which there is an absence of Reed-Sternberg cells. There are many different subtypes of non-Hodgkin lymphoma that can be either slow or fast growing.

Treatment for Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma depends on the type, stage and unique biological features of the cancer. In addition to existing chemotherapy and radiation, new treatment developments include targeted antibody therapies, immunotherapies, enzyme inhibitors, medications that slow tumor growth and gene therapies. In many cases, these new procedures offer substantial improvements over existing therapies because they are more effective, have fewer side effects and do not carry the same risks.

This year alone, the Food and Drug Administration approved two medications that significantly expand treatment options for lymphoma. The first is an immunotherapy drug called pembrolizumab, which can be used to treat for refractory Hodgkin lymphoma in children and adults who have been treated with at least three prior therapies. The second options is the enzyme inhibitor copanlisib which treats adults with relapsed follicular lymphoma, a type of slow-growing non-Hodgkin lymphoma, who have received at least two prior lines of systemic therapy.

Additionally, a chemotherapy-free treatment regimen for follicular lymphoma is showing promise in clinical trials and may provide a reasonable alternative to chemotherapy for some patients.

As treatment developments for lymphoma and other hematologic cancers continually advance, it's important to be diagnosed and treated at a comprehensive cancer center. NewYork-Presbyterian is leading groundbreaking research initiatives to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of lymphoma.

Read more...

Exercising Decreases Risk of Dying from Lymphoma, Mayo Clinic Study Shows

Exercising reduces the risk of dying from lymphoma, a Mayo Clinic study reports.

Dr. Priyanka Pophali, a blood disease specialist at the Rochester, Minnesota-based healthcare organization, presented the findings at the 59th American Society of Hematology annual meeting, in Atlanta, Dec. 9-12. The title of the presentation was “The Level of Physical Activity before and after Lymphoma Diagnosis Impacts Overall and Lymphoma-Specific Survival.”

Scientists agree that exercise can prolong people’s lives.

Pophali and her colleagues wondered how it would affect lymphoma patients’ lifespan. In particular, they wanted to know if a person would live longer by exercising more after being diagnosed with lymphoma.

Read more...