LLSC at CANO 2025: Travel to treatment, and user design in digital tool

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society of Canada (LLSC) made multiple presentations to the membership of the Canadian Association of Nurses in Oncology (CANO) at its annual conference Oct. 29 - Nov. 1, 2025 in Banff, Alberta.

In a CANO/LLSC/CCS joint symposium titled "The Cost of Cancer and Travel to Treatment: Understanding the Real-World Burden and Advocating for Change," LLSC Advocacy Manager Christina Sit presented on recent data LLSC has gathered on the financial, psychosocial and other costs of travel required to access blood cancer treatment in Canada.

She was joined by Joy Tarasuk, Director Adult Oncology & Power Trials, One Person One Record, Nova Scotia Health, Laura Burnett, Vice President, Cancer Support Programs and Services, Canadian Cancer Society (CCS), and caregiver Diedra Brown-John whose husband, diagnosed with an acute leukemia, had to travel 2 hours one way for treatment.

In the session, "Designing Digital Interventions with Users First," Nadine Prevost, Executive Director, Research and Community Services, LLSC, co-presented with Doris Howell, Emeritus Scientist at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (PMCC), and Dr. Samantha Mayo, Nurse-Researcher at PMCC, with examples of user-centred design of a digital tool they are building for the blood cancer community. (Prevost, Mayo and Howell are shown, left to right, at the top of this page.)

LLSC has participated in the annual conference of CANO for several years now. Last year LLSC and CANO signed a memorandum of understanding to continue partnering on mutual advocacy, education, services, and outreach to the blood cancer community across Canada.

CANO 2025 included a LLSC table of information ably manned by Desiree Naylor, Community Services Lead for Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.