Patient Advocates from NCCN Guidelines Panels Share Their 'United by Unique' Stories for World Cancer Day

The National Comprehensive Cancer Network joins a global day of advocacy to put people's individual needs and stories at the forefront of cancer care.

PLYMOUTH MEETING, Pa., Feb. 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Comprehensive Cancer Network^® (NCCN^®) is joining people and organizations across the globe to commemorate World Cancer Day today. World Cancer Day is a global initiative to improve awareness and knowledge of cancer risks and actions for better prevention, detection, and treatment. It is led and organized by the Union of International Cancer Control (UICC) every February 4.

World Cancer Day 2025 marks the start of the 'United by Unique' campaign to highlight how every experience with cancer is unique, even as people touched by cancer are united by shared goals. The campaign calls for a fundamental shift in cancer care worldwide towards a people-centered approach.

NCCN has long worked to advance people-centered cancer care. The organization publishes the NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines^®)—evidence-based expert consensus-driven recommendations for prevention, treatment, and supportive care. The expert panels tasked with maintaining these recommendations provide updates at least once every year. The panels are made up of multidisciplinary subject matter experts, including patient advocates who help make sure their perspectives inform treatment practices. Some of those advocates are sharing their unique stories in honor of this year's World Cancer Day.

Decoding Chronic Cancer

Ruth Fein Revell is a journalist, author, and member of the NCCN Guidelines^® Panel for Myeloproliferative Neoplasms (MPN). She has been living with chronic, evolving cancer for more than 30 years, after being first diagnosed at age 38.

"People feel invisible and misunderstood with chronic cancer," explained Revell. "We don't ever get to ring that proverbial bell that marks the end of our treatment. Having a rare disease, I often have to explain some of the things that I am experiencing, even to my doctors. Patients know their bodies best, and we're all different. We face different symptoms and different risks."

Revell recently shared more of her experience during an NCCN Patient Webinar on MPN, available on-demand at NCCN.org/patientwebinars. Her most-recent book is called The Big C²: Stories From the Chronic Side of Cancer. She noted that scientific advances have come a long way over the past 30 years, in life-changing ways. Those advances make care more successful, but also more complicated, highlighting the need for resources like the NCCN Guidelines and NCCN Guidelines for Patients^®, which provide ready access to the very latest understandings in evidence-based care.

Fighting for Family

Laura Porter, MD, is a member of the NCCN Guidelines Panel for Colorectal Cancer Screening. She was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer at 43, after struggling to be able to get a colonoscopy due to her young age and lack of family history of disease. By the time she was diagnosed, her tumor was the size of a grapefruit, and she nearly passed out from bleeding while out to dinner with her wife.

Since then, she has had multiple recurrences but has been disease-free for the last 18 years. Dr. Porter has channeled energy into various advocacy projects over the years, helping researchers to focus their attention on the things that make the biggest differences to the people they treat.

"Anybody who's a cancer survivor will tell you, life changes completely. Your new normal is definitely not normal," said Dr. Porter. She also had to contend with living in the United States at a time when she was unable to get married. "We had to make sure that all the special paperwork was filled out so if something happened to me, my partner at the time, who is now my wife would be the one that was notified. That was incredibly stressful on top of everything else."

United in Providing Trustworthy Information to Enable Shared Decision-Making

"At NCCN, we know that the best cancer care is patient-centered care that recognizes everyone's unique perspective," said Crystal S. Denlinger, MD, Chief Executive Officer, NCCN. "We are proud to champion informed, shared decision-making on World Cancer Day and every day."

Dr. Denlinger noted that this is why NCCN publishes NCCN Guidelines for Patients—an award-winning collection of resources that put reliable, expert-vetted information into understandable terms so patients and caregivers can take a more active role in their treatment decisions. They are available for free at NCCN.org/patients or via the NCCN Patient Guides for Cancer App thanks to support from the NCCN Foundation^®.

Learn more about NCCN's patient advocate panel members, free resources for the entire cancer community, and this year's World Cancer Day campaign by visiting NCCN.org/wcd.

About the National Comprehensive Cancer Network
The National Comprehensive Cancer Network^® (NCCN^®) is marking 30 years as a not-for-profit alliance of leading cancer centers devoted to patient care, research, and education. NCCN is dedicated to defining and advancing quality, effective, equitable, and accessible cancer care and prevention so all people can live better lives. The NCCN Clinical Practice Guidelines in Oncology (NCCN Guidelines^®) provide transparent, evidence-based, expert consensus-driven recommendations for cancer treatment, prevention, and supportive services; they are the recognized standard for clinical direction and policy in cancer management and the most thorough and frequently-updated clinical practice guidelines available in any area of medicine. The NCCN Guidelines for Patients^® provide expert cancer treatment information to inform and empower patients and caregivers, through support from the NCCN Foundation^®. NCCN also advances continuing education, global initiatives, policy, and research collaboration and publication in oncology. Visit NCCN.org for more information.

About the NCCN Foundation
The NCCN Foundation is marking 15 years of empowering people with cancer and their caregivers by delivering unbiased expert guidance from the world's leading cancer experts through the library of NCCN Guidelines for Patients^® and other patient education resources. The NCCN Foundation is also committed to advancing cancer treatment by funding the nation's promising young investigators at the forefront of cancer research. For more information about the NCCN Foundation, visit nccnfoundation.org.

Media Contact:
Rachel Darwin
267-622-6624
darwin@nccn.org

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2611686/NCCN_Logo_v2.jpg