You are here
News Release
Monday, October 27, 2008
Leukemia Information Added to NIH Web Site about Senior Health
Information about leukemia has just been added to NIHSeniorHealth, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Web site designed especially for older adults. Consumers can visit www.nihseniorhealth.gov/leukemia/toc.html to learn more about leukemia, a cancer of the blood cells that affects 10 times as many adults as children. In fact, more than 65 percent of people diagnosed with leukemia are older than 55 years of age.
"An estimated 44,000 new cases of leukemia will be diagnosed this year, and the majority of those cases will involve older adults," says John E. Niederhuber, M.D., director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), a component of the NIH. "The new leukemia topic on NIHSeniorHealth is an excellent source of easy-to-understand information that will help older people, their families and caregivers learn about this disease, its diagnosis and treatment."NCI developed the content for the new leukemia section of the NIHSeniorHealth Web site. (www.nihseniorhealth.gov)
One of the fastest growing age groups using the Internet, older Americans increasingly turn to the World Wide Web for health information. In fact, 68 percent of online seniors look for health and medical information when they go on the Web. NIHSeniorHealth is a joint effort of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Library of Medicine (NLM). The site is based on the latest research on cognition and aging. It features short, easy-to-read segments of information that can be accessed in a number of formats, including various large-print type sizes, open-captioned videos and an audio version. Additional topics coming soon to the site include complementary and alternative medicine, dry eye, and substance abuse and older adults.
NCI leads the National Cancer Program and the NIH effort to dramatically reduce the burden of cancer and improve the lives of cancer patients and their families through research into prevention and cancer biology, the development of new interventions and the training and mentoring of new researchers. For more information about cancer, please visit the NCI Web site at www.cancer.gov or call NCI's Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237).
Located at the NIH in Bethesda, Md., the NLM is the world's largest library of the health sciences and collects, organizes and makes available biomedical science information to scientists, health professionals and the public. For more information, visit the Web site at www.nlm.nih.gov.
The NIA leads the federal effort supporting and conducting research on aging and the medical, social and behavioral issues of older people. For more information on research and aging, go to www.nia.nih.gov.
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®