Over the last two years, teams at Weill Cornell Medicine and MD Anderson Cancer Center have been working together on a series of joint projects. Through these conversations, Dr. Ari Melnick, the Gebroe Family Professor of Hematology/Oncology, and Dr. Christopher Flowers, chair of Lymphoma/Myeloma at MD Anderson, identified a broader need for a dialogue among the larger community of those studying health disparities in hematologic malignancies (HDHM). The outgrowth of these collaborations was the first Health Disparities in Hematologic Malignancies: From Genes to Outreach conference, which was held at the Belfer Research Building on May 12-13, 2023.
As is the case for other cancers, disparities in incidence, age at diagnosis, and outcomes are often described among underserved populations with hematologic malignancies. These populations include racial and ethnic minorities, and individuals with lower socioeconomic status and lower health literacy. For example, analyses from national cancer datasets have shown that US African American patients with the most commonly diagnosed lymphoma, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), were diagnosed on an average of >10 years earlier than their white counterparts, and African Americans have more than 2- to 3-fold increased risk of myeloma when compared to white people and Hispanics. “Health disparities occurring based on race, rural locations, socioeconomic status, and insurance status can be the difference between someone whose lymphoma gets cured or not” said Dr. Flowers, who served as conference co-chair. “For this reason, the team aspired to bring this issue to the forefront in a way that would integrate a wide variety of perspectives and expertise, ranging from genomic and multiomic approaches to epidemiological and social determinants.”
The inaugural HDHM Conference brought together 31 pre-eminent expert speakers and over 80 in-person attendees from 43 academic institutions across the US with the goal of highlighting recent progress and increasing understanding of the biological basis, therapeutic targets, and social determinants of disease characteristics and phenotypes across different blood cancers. A unique feature of the conference were the open discussion panels that followed each session, and the participation of key funding agencies; these included non-government and government organizations such as the Leukemia Lymphoma Society, the Lymphoma Research Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the US Food and Drug Administration. The conference also featured presentations from patient advocates, blood cancer survivors who shared their experiences through diagnosis and treatment – leading insightful conversations which highlighted ways in which these disparities deeply affect patients.
“A major goal of this conference was to bring together the different disciplines ranging from basic molecular biology and genetics to epidemiology, social work and others involved in understanding and correcting health disparities,” said Dr. Melnick. “The conversations we had at this meeting emphasize that there are many ways to address these disparities in lymphomas, such as understanding the genetic and biological basis of these tumors, and improving access to care, clinical trials and supportive care.”
Dr. Melnick added that “that it is our hope that this conference will become one of the hallmark events within the heme malignancies disparities community, and we recognize that without the invaluable contributions of the Meyer Cancer Center and the Weill Department of Medicine, we would not have been able to offer such a remarkable and impactful event.”
Conference co-chair Dr. Ari Melnick, center, stands with co-chairs Drs. Chris Flowers and Arnold Levine.