Winter Greetings 2024
Dear CICT Friends,
Happy Holidays! As we celebrate our third year of the CICT, we are incredibly grateful to everyone who has contributed to our growth and success. Thank you for being a part of the CICT team and continuing to support our mission to transform the lives of patients with cancer and organ transplants. We are excited to share some updates and accomplishments from the second half of 2024.
CICT Research
Drs. Yue-Harn Ng, Bessie Young, Blosser and Eric Engels (NCI) have been studying the impact of Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) on cancer and transplant among US kidney transplant recipients. We look forward to sharing the results of this project in published form in the coming months. With Dr. Engels and colleagues, we recently published work studying survival probabilities of patients with a history of colorectal cancer who receive a solid organ transplantation. The full paper can be accessed here. We also continue to collaborate with Drs. Ng, Young and David Prince (PhD, Biostatistics, KRI) to better understand how social factors impact access to kidney transplant in patients with a history of cancer. To date, we have enrolled in over 180 subjects to this patient-centered research study.
Dr. Allyson Hart (University of Minnesota) is leading an NIH R01 funded project to understand and better predict cancer cure in patients on dialysis. Currently, patients who are diagnosed with cancer must wait a period of time before transplant based on expert opinion. Unfortunately, those opinions may not incorporate contemporary and personal information to optimize a patient’s life and transplant candidacy. Using population registries plus the CICT Bioregistry, this team (including Drs Hart, Blosser and Engels) aims to better understand the risk of cancer recurrence on dialysis and after kidney transplant. This will enable them to build, test and distribute a clinical decision-making tool to guide of how long patients should wait from cancer remission to kidney transplant. We are looking forward to working with Dr. Hart and the team on this important, multidimensional project.
With the support of the WA CARES Foundation and UW Nephrology, Pathology and Urology leadership, Dr Akilesh, Blosser and colleagues continue to learn about the roles of the immune system in renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer). We have recruited 47 subjects in our prospective clinical study and are performing lab-based experiments with innovative tools to advance this work as we prepare for manuscript submission in 2025.
Pediatric and adult organ transplant recipients who require chronic immunosuppression are susceptible to post-transplant lymphoproliferative disorders (PTLD), a potentially fatal blood cancer. Many will initially respond to rituximab-based therapies, but some will relapse and others are resistant to this first-line therapy. Dr. Andrew Portuguese (UW Hematology & Fred Hutch Cancer Center) is leading the pilot study funded by Kuni Foundation Imagination Grant of the tumor microenvironment (TME) and related outcomes of patients with PTLD. The team, including Drs Portuguese, Yeung, Blosser, and colleagues are studying if the TME of PTLD can predict response to treatments and when to use CAR T-cell immunotherapy. Learn more about this exciting work in the interview Dr. Blosser gave featured in Precision Medicine Magazine.
We have published additional papers in the last six months, and there are more in writing & revision phases. You can find links to our recent publications below:
Pilot Project Announcement
We are delighted to partner with Ayo Olanrewaju, PhD (UW Bioengineering, Mechanical Engineering) and team on a pilot project that is evaluating the potential use of home-based therapeutic drug monitoring for organ transplant recipients, with a focus on people living in rural settings. Our team received an ITHS Translational Science Acceleration Award to support this work. We are currently working with patients and transplant providers to solicit feedback on the concept and practical impact of this work and look forward to taking the next steps to improve the quality of life for organ transplant patients in underserved areas.
CICT Bioregistry
The CICT Bioregistry continues to grow steadily, recruiting an average of 20 subjects monthly. Since inception in March 2023, over 415 subjects have been enrolled in the CICT Bioregistry. We continue to enroll patients at the Cancer and Organ Transplant Clinic (COTC), as well as pre- and post-kidney transplant patients at UWMC. In the near future, we anticipate other organ transplant and cancer teams uploading data to further increase the size and diversity of the Bioregistry. Our Bioregistry is available for data requests with intent to serve the national and global transplant communities.
Cancer and Organ Transplant Clinic
At the CICT Cancer and Organ Transplant Clinic (COTC), we see patients with most types of cancers in the setting of organ failure or organ transplant. The COTC continues to see a steady increase in patients and referrals. To date, we have served 52 patients in the clinic, while responding to additional calls and questions from patients across the country and beyond. Patients and providers can submit a referral to be seen at the COTC. We see patients at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center and via telemedicine throughout WA, AK, MT and ID. As a reflection of the significant and novel clinical and research initiatives that Dr Blosser has led, he has been given a Joint Appointment at Fred Hutch Cancer Center.
Invited Lectures at Fred Hutch and MSKCC
In September of this year, Dr. Blosser was invited to speak at two conferences at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He was a featured speaker at the Inaugural Symposium on Kidney Transplantation in Plasma Cell Disorders and the Onco-Nephrology Symposium, delivering speeches, “Precursor Conditions and Smoldering Myeloma” and “CARS and Solid Organ Transplant”, respectively. A month later, he presented ““High Cancer Risks in Organ Transplant Recipients – Reasons for Multidisciplinary Clinical Care & Research,” at Fred Hutch Clinical Research Division Grand Rounds. These events have created many opportunities for future clinical consultation and research collaborations.
Obliteride 2024
This year, Fred Hutch Cancer Center hosted the 12th-Annual Obliteride to fundraise for advances in cancer prevention, detection, treatment and cures. The Fred Hutch raised over $9 million. Thanks to everyone who supported the CICT Obliteride Team, we raised over $2,800 to support our work. Plan to join us next year for Obliteride 2025: Saturday, August 9th!
Invitation to Support CICT
While we continue working hard to care for patients and advance knowledge of cancers in high-risk transplant patients, we need your support. After four years, the Kuni Foundation Discovery Grant is ending, and we are in search of private and foundation support to achieve our mission - Transforming the lives of people with cancer and organ transplants through integrated healthcare and research. This Holiday season, we invite you to make a financial contribution to CICT, possibly in honor of a loved one living with cancer or transplant, or in memory of friend or family member. We can accept donations of stock, personal checks, and/or other resources. Please contact the CICT Team at cict@uw.edu for more information on ways to donate and know that your entire donation will be used to support our mission. You can make a tax-deductible donation here: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation.
However you choose to be involved, we are grateful for your support and couldn’t do it without you. Thank you!
Happy Holidays,
Chris Blosser and Felicia Che