Guillermo Garcia-Manero, MD, Reflects on National Cancer Prevention and Early Detection Month

By Guillermo Garcia-Manero, MD, Leah Sherwood, Melissa Badamo - Last Updated: August 8, 2024

Joe Biden, President of the United States, recently proclaimed April to be National Cancer Prevention and Early Detection Month.

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Dr. Garcia-Manero, a Professor in the Department of Leukemia at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, reflects on this month and discusses the importance of early detection and prevention in leukemias.

“This is an important national initiative, and I’m grateful to President Biden for continuing to support this effort,” Dr. Garcia-Manero said.

As the leader of MD Anderson’s myelodysplastic syndromes and acute myeloid leukemia Moon Shot Program, Dr. Garcia-Manero explained how this initiative ties into the concept of prevention and early detection.

“This has been an extremely successful program that has enabled a lot of different clinical and research initiatives,” he noted.

Early detection and prevention are particularly important in leukemia. “We are demonstrating that early therapy of patients with different leukemias may result in improvement in survival. In clinical situations, you can be in a position to predict when or how someone will develop leukemia, which will then translate into early therapeutics,” Dr. Garcia-Manero said.

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