Friends of CLL Advocates NZ
I’m pleased to report on a very successful inaugural CLLANZ seminar on 14 October, co-hosted by LBC.  Around 100 people attended either by zoom or in person in LBC offices up and down the country. There were three excellent presentations by three of NZ’s most authoritative clinicians on CLL. Dr Peter Browett described the disease, Dr Gillian Corbett spoke on therapy, and Dr Rob Weinkove explained likely future directions for CLL treatment. An informative panel discussion and questions session concluded the two-hour event.

I thank all those who helped organise and manage this event, and particularly LBC for providing their facilities. This will hopefully be the first of many such events in years to come.

The seminar has provided us with an up-to-date, comprehensive patient resource on CLL in NZ. A video of the full event will shortly be posted on our website, and the presentations can be found here.

Identifying the priorities we should be pushing for in CLL treatment was a key theme of the event. These included having testing available in NZ for IgVH mutations, and I’m pleased to say this has already stimulated momentum to develop this.

As well as being our inaugural seminar the event was the formal launch of CLLANZ, almost two years after we first discussed the idea of starting the group, somewhat delayed by COVID 19.

It was also the formal launch of our booklet “CLL – A Guide for Patients in NZ”. Again, dedicated individual and team effort resulted in an excellent, informative document, which is available here on our website and in hard copy. If you would like a hard copy please send us your postal address. The booklet is also being distributed to CLL clinics around NZ, where you can also pick up a copy. Feedback on this is welcomed.

We’ve already had a lot of positive feedback on the event, along with suggestions for future seminar themes, and would welcome further thoughts on this.

Best wishes

Neil Graham