Moffitt Cancer Center - Florida Leukemia Health Care and Treatment Centers

Moffitt Cancer Center

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Malignant Hematology Program

Program Orientation/Overview

The Malignant Hematology Program specializes in the evaluation, treatment and comprehensive care of patients with hematologic diseases. The program is recognized as a Center of Excellence by the Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS) Foundation. It is one of four founding institutions of the Bone Marrow Failure Disease Consortium BMFDC) recently funded by the National Institutes of Health. All patients with MDS, large granular lymphocytic leukemia, aplastic anemia or other rare causes of bone marrow failure are registered in the consortium’s national database, which was developed and is maintained at Moffitt Cancer Center. The BMF Consortium is the first and only cooperative network developed by the National Institutes of Health for the study of the biology and development of novel therapeutics for these disorders.

Although chemotherapy remains an integral component of the treatment for most hematologic malignancies, the development of disease-specific or targeted therapeutics represents the research goal of Moffitt investigators treating lymphoma, leukemias and multiple myeloma. Marrow or stem cell transplantation often is indicated for the treatment of such diseases. The treatment protocols of the Malignant Hematology Program are integrated with those of the Blood & Marrow Transplantation Program. The Cancer Center has state-of-the-art facilities for both outpatient and inpatient administration of chemotherapy.

Research
Research is ongoing in basic research laboratories, where scientists investigate how the diseases originate, and in clinical investigations, where phase I and phase II studies are developed to introduce new drug therapies that can directly impact patient care. The program emphasizes translational studies in which the trials are designed by Moffitt investigators based on their preclinical findings. Moffitt investigators have led the development of several exciting new molecules, which promise to alter the management of patients with these diseases.

Disease-Specific Sections
The Malignant Hematology Program is composed of three disease-specific sections: Leukemia/MDS, Lymphoma and Myeloma. This allows physicians within each section to focus their expertise on a single disease discipline. By focusing on one disease, our faculty members become more specialized in that disease. We can provide better care for patients and develop research enterprises in both clinical and basic science that are disease-specific.

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