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New Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia Guidelines for Patients Available from NCCN
NCCN has released the NCCN Patient Guidelines for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia, available free of charge on NCCN.com. NCCN Patient Guidelines are a tool to help patients and their caregivers take a more active role in treatment decisions.
FORT WASHINGTON, PA — The National Comprehensive Cancer Network® (NCCN®), with the support of the NCCN Foundation, recently announced the latest addition to the library of NCCN Guidelines for Patients™, the NCCN Patient Guidelines™ for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia. This resource is a patient-friendly, easy-to-understand translation of the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines™) for Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML), which physicians use when determining appropriate cancer treatment. The NCCN Patient Guidelines aim to help patients with cancer and their loved ones discuss the best treatment options for them with their physicians.
More than 4,500 new cases of CML are diagnosed in the United States each year, with most cases occurring in adults. CML is one of four major types of leukemia and accounts for 15 percent of adult leukemias. It is a leukemia that grows slowly and causes too many white blood cells to form. People diagnosed with CML often have more than one treatment option, including, but not limited to, tyrosine kinase inhibitors, chemotherapy, or hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.
The NCCN Guidelines™ are developed by multidisciplinary panels of experts from NCCN Member Institutions and feature algorithms or decision trees that address every appropriate management option from initial work-up throughout the course of the disease. The NCCN Patient Guidelines translate these professional guidelines in a clear, step-by-step manner that patients can use as the basis for making decisions and discussing treatment options with their physicians.
The NCCN Patient Guidelines are available free of charge at NCCN.com, which, in addition, features informative articles for patients and caregivers. NCCN also offers six other NCCN Patient Guidelines including Breast, Non-Small Cell Lung, Ovarian and Prostate Cancers, and Melanoma and Multiple Myeloma. By the end of 2011, NCCN aims to have 10 new and updated NCCN Patient Guidelines added to the library, with the next NCCN Patient Guidelines for Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma scheduled for release in the summer of 2011.