HealthTree Foundation Unveils 'Cure in Five' Initiative for Multiple Myeloma Awareness Month

SALT LAKE CITY, March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- The HealthTree Foundation, a patient-driven, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that empowers patients at each step of their disease journey, today announced a new initiative called 'Cure in Five' which highlights five steps to identify and accelerate curative strategies for multiple myeloma. The initiative's five steps are built out of HealthTree's model for educating and engaging patients to be actively involved in their own treatment and myeloma research.

"We're always asking ourselves how we can contribute to faster cures," said Jenny Ahlstrom, myeloma patient and founder of The HealthTree Foundation. "Now that myeloma therapies are significantly extending life, we want to emphasize the even better goal of finding curative strategies with the help of an engaged patient community willing to share their myeloma experiences. Our #CureinFive goal is to identify a myeloma cure, even if for a subset of patients."

The 'Cure in Five' steps are:

1. Build and grow community – since its launch in 2013, over 700,000 unique visitors are part of the HealthTree Myeloma Crowd site and over 8600 have joined the HealthTree Cure Hub to share their myeloma experiences.
2. Educate and empower patient community – patients can become experts in their disease through HealthTree University's curated, comprehensive curriculum featuring 293 lectures in 22 courses led by 94 recognized myeloma experts.
3. Share your story and experiences – patients can enter all of their labs and information into a single portal that can be shared with their physicians; contribute their de-identified information to an IRB-approved qualified researcher portal to make data available to the research community; be matched to personally relevant treatments and clinical trials; can be connected to their myeloma "twins" who are other patients whose disease shares similar genetic characteristics.
4. Participate in and help fund research – patients can take surveys, join clinical trials and fund research.
5. Draw new conclusions – Using information contributed by this large pool of patients, qualified researchers can develop and investigate new hypotheses to accelerate and identify a cure.

With March being Multiple Myeloma Awareness Month, the HealthTree Foundation plans to announce a series of new features for its HealthTree CureHub in the coming weeks, aligned with one of the five steps outlined above.

"Ten years ago we never would have mentioned the word 'cure'," said Rafael Fonseca, M.D., Interim Executive Director, Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center. "Now, thanks to the progress made in recent years, we believe a functional cure can be achieved for a subset of myeloma patients using existing treatments in the right order and the right combination."

The HealthTree Foundation's mission is to identify these patients achieving remarkable outcomes so their success can be replicated for others, while providing disease navigation tools to patients for a lifetime of support.  

#cureinfive #curenotchronic #healthtreeforthecure #curemyeloma

For more information, visit https://www.myelomacrowd.org/cure-in-five/ 
About The HealthTree Foundation / Myeloma Crowd

The HealthTree Foundation is a patient-driven, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that empowers patients at each step of their disease journey. Myeloma patients can access the foundation's resources for free. These include the HealthTree Cure Hub (previously called HealthTree), an online community tool that helps patients explore their best treatment options, find clinical trials based on their stage of disease and lab values, and contribute their de-identified data to accelerate a cure. Other HealthTree tools include a learning management platform called HealthTree University, a HealthTree Coach mentoring program, patient Community Forums, and a Twin Machine feature that allows patients to find, connect and chat with others whose diseases have similar or identical genetic characteristics. Jennifer Ahlstrom and her husband Paul founded the HealthTree Foundation and the Myeloma Crowd which provides patient education, advocacy and research funding for multiple myeloma.

SOURCE Myeloma Crowd: HealthTree Foundation

Related Links

https://www.myelomacrowd.org/