Cancer patients displaced by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath who are in Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky and in need of continued treatment can contact the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center for assistance.
Vanderbilt-Ingram’s Cancer Information Program can be reached at (800) 811-8480. Nurses at that number can assist cancer patients, families and health care professionals. To schedule appointments patients can call the Vanderbilt Appointment Center directly at 866-444-8863.
“The medical need for cancer patients on ongoing treatment plans may not be as readily apparent as a diabetic without insulin or a renal failure patient without dialysis, but they need medical attention nonetheless,” said David Johnson, M.D., deputy director at Vanderbilt-Ingram and director of the Division of Hematology-Oncology.
“We want to avoid treatment delays if at all possible, and we want to help any displaced cancer patients who are in our area receive the therapy that they need.”
Johnson and Raymond DuBois, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, participated in a conference call on Friday with National Cancer Institute director Andrew Von Eschenbach and representatives of other NCI-designated cancer centers to discuss the centers’ response to the disaster.
More than 7,000 cancer patients are registered on NCI-sponsored clinical trials in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, the NCI director said.
“That number is not specific to the areas immediately affected by Katrina, but it also does not take into account the many cancer patients who are receiving treatment outside of a clinical trial,” Johnson noted.