The Long-term Follow-up (LTFU) core supports follow-up of patients receiving hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) on the various protocols of this Program Project. The LTFU Core aims to ensure complete follow-up of patients undergoing transplantation at the City of Hope Cancer Center, in order to identify detailed information on the incidence and potential risk factors for delayed cardiopulmonary dysfunction, gastrointestinal, renal, reproductive or endocrine dysfunction and subsequent cancers. The Core aims to identify groups at increased risk for the development of these complications, and make recommendations for screening patients identified to be at increased risk. The LTFU Core members include the Core Director (Dr. Smita Bhatia), Dr. Roberto Rodriguez (Staff Physician, Hematopoietic Cell Transplant Program), a Nurse Coordinator and two Clinical Research Assistants (CRAs). The LTFU Core staff has significant expertise in establishing and following large cohorts of cancer survivors and addressing survivorship issues. The LTFU Core has developed and utilized a customized data-collection instrument and database for follow-up and documentation of all potential complications occurring in patients undergoing HCT. Mechanisms are currently in place for ensuring annual follow-up, data collection and data entry for patients undergoing HCT and surviving one or more years. The overall goal of this core is to improve the quality of long-term survival of patients undergoing allogeneic or autologous transplantation for hematologic malignancies, through early identification of complications, identification of """"""""high risk"""""""" groups, and recommendations for screening and/or interventions for prevention of these adverse outcomes. The core also aims to develop risk-based, exposure-related guidelines for long-term follow-up of HCT survivors. The development of these guidelines will allow early identification of exposure-related late complications, potentially allowing for early intervention with resultant improved quality of life and decreased complicationrelated healthcare costs. Thus, the LTFU core is ideally suited to ensure optimum follow-up and systematic data collection of patients undergoing HCT at City of Hope, and will be a vital component to the successful conduct of outcomes-based research.
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