Leukemia

Marilyn and Kevin Sittniewski have been together and married for more than three decades. Over the years, they’ve shared quite a lot, but they never expected to share leukemia.
For many types of pediatric cancers, the treatment that helps save a child’s life might also cause lifelong challenges. A revolutionary new kind of therapy might change all that.
If you’ve noticed a scattering of little red spots on your skin, a condition called petechiae, it could mean that your blood is trying to tell you something.
"I love Roswell Park. I am in awe of all they do for cancer patients. Almost every time I am there, I hear someone ring that Victory Bell, and I thank God for all the people at Roswell Park who made that possible."

When hematologic oncologist Amro Elshoury, MD, started working at Roswell Park in 2019, he quickly recognized the need for a team of experts to address a confounding condition: mast cell disorders.

Single dad Chris Bosley is currently in his second monthlong stay at Roswell Park for treatment for acute myeloid leukemia (AML). During his first hospitalization, back in December, he saw his parents every day and, best of all, his son three times a week.

It was the middle of May. My son and his wife had just had their first baby — my first grandchild — on Mother's Day. I hadn’t been feeling well and got dizzy every time I went to stand up.

Dr. Wang and her Roswell Park colleagues travel the world to identify new clinical trials for leukemia for our patients at Roswell Park. "Our patients should have access to the same trials as patients in Boston, New York, Chicago and San Francisco."

Chronic and acute leukemias are completely different diseases, and they progress at different speeds. The way they’re treated can be very different.

Last October, at age 19, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had recently graduated from high school and begun working. And then I started not feeling well – I was tired and under the weather all the time.

At Roswell Park, he enrolled on a clinical trial evaluating a drug combination that would later become known as “7 and 3,” for the dosing schedule of two drugs — seven days of cytarabine followed by three days of daunorubicin.

To help Dr. Griffiths' patients understand myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), she typically starts by telling them to think of their blood as a grocery store and their bone marrow as a farm.