[MUSIC PLAYING]
Shannon Piche, Pharm.D., Clinical Pharmacist: What I hope that a patient feels is that things are different here. They come to Mayo Clinic and we honor the things that are important to the patient. We hear them, we understand, we see their journey.
N. Nora Bennani, M.D., Hematologist, Internist & Oncologist: Some of these cutaneous lymphomas are notoriously difficult to manage. There are a lot of symptoms that can be difficult to treat, particularly the itching. Having a dermatologist, a hematologist, pharmacist, as well as a radiation oncologist see the patient at the same time and come up with the plan relatively quickly is of tremendous help to the patient.
Nneka I. Comfere, M.D., Dermatologist: Oftentimes, patients are frustrated because they've spent a lot of time away from work and family and just the burden associated with trialing different treatments that haven't really worked because the diagnosis was never really clear.
Dr. Piche: When you come to Mayo, you still have a rare condition, but you're one of a few more, at least. The providers that are caring for you have years and years of caring for this specific type of illness and you're in a specialty clinic that literally is focused on you.
Dr. Bennani: When we see a patient here at Mayo Clinic, we look at the patient as a whole.
Emma F. Johnson, M.D., Dermatologist: This allows us to sit with the patient and hear their story, their journey
and how this is impacting them and how we can help them feel better.
William G. Breen, M.D., Radiation Oncologist: I think it's comforting to patients to know that there's doctors from different specialties and different expertises, putting their heads together to try to come up with what's the best plan right now.
Dr. Comfere: Second to our multidisciplinary and patient-centered approach to care, I would say another differentiator for our Cutaneous Lymphoma Clinic is access to clinical trials.
Dr. Bennani: A clinical trial may provide you with highly active therapies that will not be available to you outside of a trial. I will highly encourage our patients to consider looking into it.
Dr. Breen: We're fortunate enough in our department of radiation oncology to have access to a number of different treatment modalities that aren't available at most centers in the region or the country.
Dr. Comfere: We're really excited about this new piece of skin imaging technology we've brought into our practice. It takes a picture of the entirety of the skin soft surface in one shot, so right away it gives you a sense of the proportion of the surface of the skin that's involved by lymphoma.
Dr. Johnson: Each patient with cutaneous lymphoma is going to require different treatment.
It can range from topical creams and light therapy to chemotherapy and radiation, so really wide spectrum of treatments. And by considering the patient as a whole and from multiple different perspectives, we can select the appropriate treatment on that broad spectrum.
Dr. Breen: When we're treating a patient with cutaneous lymphoma, of course the focus is treating the lymphoma and making sure that we're safely and effectively treating the lymphoma, but patients are also real people
who have other things going on in life.
Dr. Piche: Hearing from the patient what their priorities are and what their barriers are to implementing a particular recommendation is very important. So you have to work with a patient to create a regimen that is tolerable for them and their lifestyle.
Dr. Johnson: Because it can be so symptomatic, we really let the patient guide treatment
with which symptoms they want to treat first or most aggressively. When a patient finishes their visit at Mayo Clinic, we hope that we have a solid diagnosis. The patient understands that diagnosis and what that means for them now and also in the future.
Dr. Bennani: And ultimately we wanna do what's best for our patients,
whether they are treated here at Mayo or we are helping their local team in the community manage their disease.
Dr. Breen: We know that there's so much variation from cancer type to cancer type and patient to patient that it's really important to hear from an expert about what's the reality of your diagnosis.
Dr. Comfere: They're in the right place, and I tell them, we've seen many, many cases of this cutaneous lymphoma and we know how to diagnose it, and we know how to treat it, and we're going to help their local providers and equip them with the resources they need to follow their care over time.
Dr. Johnson: I think treatment success is guided by the patient, so if we are able to get them back to living a life that they enjoy, that they can do the things that they want to do, that is my goal.