Once fatal cancers now manageable chronic diseases

A husband and wife, both with the type of leukemia featured in the movie 'Dying to Survive,' have shared the stories of their long-term fight with the disease and the lives of their healthy children at the on-going China International Import Expo.

They are calling for more medical innovation and support for cancer patients to enjoy a longer and better life.

Thanks to repeated innovations and breakthroughs in medication and medical solution development, cancer is no longer such a fatal disease. More and more patients are able to achieve "clinical recovery" by surviving more than five years.

The World Health Organization has defined chronic disease as non-communicable diseases enduring for long durations (five-year survival rate is over 50 percent). Some types of cancer have become chronic illnesses, much like diabetes or heart disease, under regular and effective treatment and management.

Liu Zhengchen, founder of the New Sunshine Charity Foundation, signed a cooperation agreement with Novartis at the CIIE to better patient support and service system to improve patients' self-management ability, push exchanges between experts and expand charity projects of New Sunshine.

New Sunshine is a leading charity organization focusing on chronic myelogenous leukemia and other serious types of diseases. It has the nation's only non-governmental stem cell bank and a patient school offering education to sick children.

"I am a CML patient myself and a beneficiary of the innovative medicine, which makes me survive for such a long time and even have a family," Liu said.

"Based on my own experience, New Sunshine was set up in 2012, offering patients support on treatment as well as giving sponsorship to medical research and doctor training.

"Through cooperation with top company like Novartis, we can give patients more professional and high-quality service and help to Chinese patients, who also can enjoy a good life and have access to more innovative medicines and therapies."

Liu said he specially arranged his honeymoon to visit the headquarters of Novartis in Switzerland and met one of the scientists who invented the innovative medicine Glivec.

"The scientist is Elisabeth Buchdunger, so I named my first daughter Elisa to express my gratitude to scientists, whose discovery has saved lives of so many patients like me," he said.

Novartis officials expressed their eagerness to cooperate with Chinese patients' organizations and foundations to give more support to patients and arouse higher social awareness.

In addition to reaching cooperation with New Sunshine, the company also announced it is teaming up with China Alliance over rare diseases. It will initiate a scheme to help people with paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, a rare blood disorder that causes hemolytic anemia, chronic kidney disease or blood clots if untreated.

Dr Zhang Liansheng from Second Hospital of Lanzhou University said treatment of PNH has significantly improved, but the difficulty in getting accurate diagnosis and timely treatment as well as high medical expenses are all burdens to patients and their families.

"Cooperation between leading pharmaceutical companies and patients' alliances can bring more hope to patients," he said.

Apart from leukemia, local medical experts announced the latest results of a clinical research on terminal patients with lung cancer after taking targeted medications. As high as 63 percent of Asian patients with ALK-positive advanced lung cancer are living beyond five years without disease progression.

"On these patients, we can see that lung cancer patients can survive for over five years or longer without development," said Dr Zhou Caicun from Shanghai East Hospital.

"It means lung cancer is turning to a chronic disease and patients can achieve clinical recovery. We are pushing more doctors to target clinical recovery as the purpose of lung cancer treatment by adopting more accurate and reasonable treatment and enhance whole-process management, while patients should do better self-management and follow doctors' instructions properly."

During the CIIE, the China International Exchange and Promotive Association for Medical and Health Care signed cooperation agreement with Pfizer to push the clinical recovery awareness on lung cancer with ALK-positive by promoting health education among patients, doctors and the public.

The first guidance on chronic disease-format management of lung cancer patients was also released in the CIIE, covering all knowledge of disease screening, treatment, side effect management, rehabilitation, mental support, nutrition and life management to streamline long-term survival.