THE HAGUE, the Netherlands, May 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

The introduction of a European Hematology Association-Theme of the Year in June 2012, focusing on Quality of Life (QoL) in Hematology, was successful in stimulating awareness, conference sessions, publications, and reports.

The conclusion, in June 2013, of this year's theme includes two editorials in Haematologica entitled "Patients' needs in hematology: whose perspectives?" and "Age and Aging in blood disorders: EHA Theme of the Year 2013-2014". The Scientific Working Group Quality of Life and Symptoms will organize a SWG Session "Implementation of treatment related patient-reported outcomes in routine clinical practice in hematological malignancies". Although each theme of the year is introduced to highlight a certain topic in hematology, the themes will remain active. Therefore, Quality of Life will stay on the agenda.

This year for the first time, the EHA congress program is complemented by a dedicated advocacy track. This track combines all patient and policy related sessions into one comprehensive full-day program on Saturday.

The track kicks off with the patient advocacy session. In this session several speakers, patient representatives and other experts, will discuss how patients can be involved as partners in clinical research and how the challenges of informed consent, trial results, and ethics in bio-banking can be turned into opportunities.

The patient advocacy session is followed by the EHA-ESH symposium, which interactively deals with explaining unavailability of treatment. How do you explain to a patient that he or she can no longer receive treatment that is endorsed by national guidelines as the best option and that his or her choices are restricted?

In collaboration with the American Society of Hematology a joint program has been designed on delivering health care in eras of economic crises.

The track closes with EHA's own advocacy session on personalized medicine. This session highlights important policy issues that EHA addresses and that affect hematologists in their day-to-day work showing the case of personalized medicine.

Press Briefing:
The press briefing is organized on Friday June 15, 08:30 - 10:00 a.m. CET, in Hall C5 at the Stockholmsmässan.

Press Registration:
Registration for members of the press is free. To receive your personal link for the online registration, please send an e-mail with your request and media credentials to communication@ehaweb.org. The Congress Media Guidelines are available here.

SOURCE European Hematology Association