Chika Nwoke
Research Mentor(s): Bradley Zebrack
Mentor Department: Social Work
Authors: Bradley Zebrack, Chika Nwoke
Session: Session 7 (4:00pm – 4: 50pm)
Presentation Type: Poster 23
Abstract
Many scientific and medical breakthroughs have been made in the treatment of Hodgkin’s/Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and how it develops, but the social and psychological factors that could lead to the formation of these cancers are often a less thoroughly explored aspect of research, especially in relation to young adults. Thus, this study aims to investigate if social factors like economic stability and personal traits of self-efficacy and resilience affect a young adult’s cancer recurrence or development of other diseases. To accomplish this, this study distributes surveys to young adult cancer survivors aged 18-39 every six months about their current psychological state along with a concurrent blood draw in order to draw possible conclusions on how one’s psychological state could interact with their CTRA pathway, a genomic pathway that is believed to play a role in the development of future morbidities. After their blood is collected, the samples are sent to the Central Biorepository and Pathology Facility (CBPF) in Houston, Texas. This is a facility within the MD Anderson Cancer Center, which is under the ECOG-ACRIN name, which is a membership-based scientific organization cancer research group overseeing the trial. As the study will be ongoing until 2028 from its launch during early 2023, we can only make predictions as to how these social risk factors provided from the survey can interact with the pathway, but our prediction is that there will be increased CTRA pathway activation in individuals that report higher stress and lower feelings of social support. This study will provide insight into possible ways that health professionals can implement social support programs to better the quality of life of young adult cancer survivors, and to not only focus on the medical aspect of the diagnosis.
