Dr. Jain on the Importance of Blood Cancer Awareness Month

Nitin Jain, MD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, speaks about Blood Cancer Awareness Month and what it means to him as a clinician and a researcher.

Blood Cancer Awareness Month is a “very important aspect” of helping to expand knowledge about hematologic malignancies and treatment options, he said.

“As new therapies are coming along—immune therapies, [chimeric antigen receptor] T-cell therapies—[those] have changed the treatment paradigm of how we are managing patients,” Dr. Jain said.

He spoke about the practical importance of increasing awareness.

“I think having awareness from a clinician’s perspective, [and] from a patient’s perspective, is very important so that you can find the right treatment for an individual patient … or recommend them to go to a specific clinical trial,” Dr. Jain said.

Overall, he emphasized that it’s key to educate patients, clinicians, and researchers on blood cancers, saying that “knowledge and awareness become more and more crucial” as “more and more therapies” emerge in the field.