Bone Marrow Transplant Survivorship Program

Overview

Due to advances in bone marrow transplant practices, more individuals are living longer free of their cancer diagnosis than ever before. In this environment, the cancer experience is shifting from an acute illness to a chronic condition. We are beginning to recognize the full range of medical, functional, and psychological challenges facing bone marrow transplant (BMT) survivors. Consequently, survivorship has become a distinct phase of cancer care that requires more focused attention. Survivorship refers to the process of living with, through, and beyond cancer. Survivorship is unique for every person. Everyone has to find his or her own path to navigate the changes and challenges that occur as a result of living with cancer.

Our Mission

The goal of this program is to improve the experience and outcomes of bone marrow transplant (BMT) survivors and their families by:

• Providing high-quality clinical survivorship care
• Conducting innovative research to enhance the delivery, experience, and quality of life and care for BMT survivors, their families, and caregivers

Multidisciplinary Clinical Care

Survivors will be able to regularly see BMT specialists who also have expertise in other medical areas, creating a one-stop treatment plan that reduces secondary and potentially stressful doctor visits elsewhere.

Our clinical program is designed to comprehensively explore the needs of BMT survivors and their families and improve their quality of life and overall care, including:

• Physical symptoms with emphasis on pain and fatigue
• Psychological distress: anxiety, depression, fear of disease recurrence
• Chronic graft-versus-host disease involving any organ
• Physical activity and functional limitations
• Cognitive dysfunction
• Hormonal deficiencies
• Bone health
• Sleep disturbances
• Sexual dysfunction and fertility concerns
• Late effects of cancer therapy including cardiopulmonary dysfunction
• Cancer prevention
• Immunizations and infections

Research

The Mass General Bone Marrow Transplant Survivorship Research Program focuses on enhancing the quality of life and care for BMT survivors and their families in the following areas:

• Symptom Assessment & Intervention
• Cancer Prevention & Screening
• Communication & Treatment Decision-making
• Education & Training
• Patient Health Behavior and Self-Care
• Models of Care & Health Services

The Mass General Cancer Center Bone Marrow Transplant Survivorship Program is leading the efforts to develop innovative interventions to address the needs of BMT Survivors. Current ongoing research efforts:

• A longitudinal study to assess chronic graft-versus-host disease symptom burden, coping, and their relationship with quality of life and distress in BMT survivors.
• Developing a cognitive behavioral therapy intervention to reduce depression and anxiety and improve quality of life for patients living with chronic graft-versus-host disease.
• Testing the efficacy of a web-bases BMT survivorship course on enhancing the experience and overall QOL of BMT survivors.
• Qualitative research efforts to comprehensively understand the challenges facing bone marrow transplant survivors and their family caregivers.
• Developing and testing a multi-component intervention to enhance the quality of life and reduce distress in family caregivers of BMT survivors.
• A multimodal intervention to address sexual dysfunction post-transplant: a feasibility and preliminary efficacy study.
• BMT Survivorship Program database: collecting comprehensive patient-reported outcomes on BMT survivors with a detailed needs assessments to allow for future development of targeted interventions to improve the care of BMT survivors.