The Maximize Life Campaign: A Variety of Events but a Shared Message in Latin America

In Latin America, the Maximize Life Campaign has become something like a tradition – a time when each patient organization creates an event or activity of their choice and powers it up for a campaign that takes on a life of its own!

13 patient groups from 11 Latin American countries joined this year’s movement, bringing together patients and caregivers with the purpose of telling the community that cancer is an issue, that ignoring it is not going to make it go away, and that the best approach is to learn about it in order to know what to do about it. From governments to the general public, everybody can get involved in figuring out how to treat cancer patients as members of society and not as a burden.

A story of Hope from a Doctor’s Perspective.

My name is Dr. Temilola Owojuyigb; I work in the Hematology and Blood Transfusion Unit, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. I decided to specialize in Hematology because hematological diseases are not often diagnosed or diagnosed late in affected persons due to a scarcity of experts. Thus, patients either do not get treatment or get treated when many complications….

Finding Value in the Patient Experience

Health systems around the world are strained due to the high burden of costs. In an attempt to guide decision-makers in their choices on behalf of patients, the topic of value frameworks was born. These value frameworks evaluate all aspects of cancer treatment: clinical benefit, side effects, and improvement in patient symptoms or quality of life. But given the complexities of the multitude of health systems around the world, it is not a straightforward discussion. And right now, it’s a dialogue driven by thought leaders and health economists from the US and Europe. But there are critical voices is missing from this discussion: patients and patient advocates.