A first-of-its-kind collaboration between three large breast cancer organizations aimed at finding better treatments for metastatic survivors and ultimately helping to determine causes of and prevention for breast cancer.
The collaboration is between Komen, the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation and the Young Survival Coalition. In the short term, the organizations are asking breast cancer survivors to tell us about the side effects of their treatment. We know that patients often keep those side effects to themselves, unwilling to complain about treatments that are keeping them alive. These side effects, however, – depression, lymphedema, neuropathy, chemobrain, etc. – often aren’t documented widely, so doctors are not aware of information that could help them better treat their breast cancer patients.
We hope to break through that silence in the hopes of helping the medical community and patients.
(Click link to participate)
The larger study is Dr. Love’s Health of Women [HOW] Study. The organizations are asking everyone (regardless if the person has been diagnosed with breast cancer or not) to take part in the HOW Study. Dr. Love is gathering data that may help identify patterns of causation in breast cancer.
About the HOW Project:
The HOW Study is a long-term cohort study in which participants are followed over time and are asked to complete periodic online questionnaires about their past and current health. The goals of the HOW Study are to identify risk factors for breast cancer as well as factors that can contribute to long-term survival. Anyone over the age of 18 can participate in HOW regardless of medical history, gender or geographic location.
Dr. Love is “democratizing” the research by inviting everyone – male, female, old, young, breast cancer survivor or not – to participate in the HOW study. Even if you are not a breast cancer patient, comparing information about you can help us identify areas which make a person at greater risk for developing breast cancer.
Participation in this study is also an opportunity to bring issues with breast cancer diagnosis and treatment front and center, so that organizations and physicians can do a better job of helping patients. We invite you to participate, and to submit topics or questions about any side effects experienced with breast cancer treatments to www.questionthecure.org.
(Click link to story)
