Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center shared a post on LinkedIn:
“By Shernan Holtan
Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplant, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center
We are changing our mindset as we coach patients through recovery from a stem cell transplant.
100% Six-Month Survival Rate Achieved
Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has achieved a remarkable success in allogeneic transplants — stem cell transplants to treat blood cancers.
All of the patients we transplanted last year survived at least 6 months, and one-year survival for these patients is projected to be above 90% — an incredible achievement given how sick many of these patients are and how aggressive their cancers are. I’m so proud of these outcomes, likely to be among the best outcomes in the world.
I want to share how we got here.
We Now Know We Can Safely Get Patients Home Sooner
Based on the science and technology available at the time, we used to think patients needed to be hospitalized in a protected environment, basically walled off from the outside world to properly recover. Patients were terrified to the point where they may not leave their house or engage in their normal social activities.
Now, with advancements in transplant and supportive care, we’re able to shift our approach. Why do we want transplant patients to go home as soon as possible? Because they’re moving their bodies more, they’re taking care of their own needs, they can control what they are eating. They’re definitely sleeping better. They can get back to living their lives.
My Journey to Making Movement a Part of Post-Transplant Treatment
After going through medical training and having children, I was not at my healthiest, and recognized I needed help. As we always recommend to our patients, I consulted a professional — a personal trainer who’s become my lifelong friend and coach. I fell in love with weightlifting. I followed his programs over time, became incrementally stronger and stronger, and set a national record in power lifting.
I quickly realized how training with my coach changed my quality of life and how I could do the same for my patients. I investigated how regular physical activity could improve their recovery and discovered it’s as critical as any medication we give them.
An Attainable Goal for Patients
My goal was to cut a patient’s time in the hospital in half.
I start by encouraging movement early in their recovery. It varies by patient, based on their condition before transplant, their lifestyle and what movement would be natural enough for them to repeat regularly. Some engage in resistance training, others in riding a stationary bike, and many begin with walks around the hospital. The key is to initiate the process of building up muscle mass.
Then we focus on a nutrition plan, incorporating protein-rich foods into their diets to add to that muscle mass. Adequate nutrition can help support immune function that may help control the cancer. Optimizing all our supportive care may be just as important as optimizing the cancer treatment itself. In the future, I anticipate we will have even more sophisticated and effective ways to help maintain or even improve muscle mass during cancer treatment.
Protection from Relapse
Studies are showing correlation between low muscle mass and an increased risk of relapse and complications of cancer treatment. Therefore, optimizing patient outcomes requires focusing on controllable factors — including nutrition and physical activity.
Traditionally, patients undergoing stem cell transplant face lengthy hospital stays, sometimes three to five months, to monitor them for complications. However, we’ve shown that many of them can largely recover at home by committing to a healthy lifestyle, prioritizing remote follow-up appointments and maximizing donor selections.
Just like my coach taught me, my goal is to give them the knowledge and the confidence to work independently.
Let’s coach our patients so they ultimately don’t need us anymore.
Let’s give people facing cancer their lives back.
Dr. Holtan is the Chief of Blood and Marrow Transplant at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, NY. She’s a Professor of Medicine at Roswell Park, Upstate New York’s only nationally designated comprehensive cancer center, and holds an additional faculty appointment through the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo.
She has served as the principal investigator of various observational and interventional clinical trials, including investigator-initiated studies, and has contributed to the advancement of understanding prevention and treatment of acute Graft-versus-Host Disease (GVHD) and post-transplant muscle loss.
Roswell Park is known worldwide for its pioneering model for multidisciplinary care and patient-centered services for people with cancer. Founded in 1898 as the nation’s first cancer research center, Roswell Park today holds the “exceptional” rating from the National Cancer Institute — the highest distinction for any cancer center.“
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