Blood Cancer Awareness Month is observed in September to raise public awareness about blood cancers that can pose serious risks to a person’s health. These cancers include lymphoma, leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, and myeloma.

Approximately every three minutes, someone is diagnosed with blood cancer, and at this moment, approximately 1.3 million Americans are living with or are in remission from blood cancer.

These cancers are the third leading cause of cancer death in the United States, so it’s important for everyone to assess their risks of developing one of these cancers, get regularly screened, and donate to organizations that are attempting to find a cure for these diseases.

The History of Blood Cancer Awareness Month

Although people have been working on creating a month dedicated to blood cancers since the late 1960s and early 1970s, it didn’t come to fruition until 2010. This is when the U.S. Congress designated September as Blood Cancer Awareness Month. This month has been observed ever since to raise the public profile of these cancers and to raise money for research.

Important Facts About Blood Cancers

We wanted to not only learn more about blood cancers but also find information that we could share with all of our readers. With that in mind, we present to everyone the following blood cancer facts.

• In 2022, over 61,000 people were diagnosed with leukemia.
• Since the 1960s, the 5-year survival rate for leukemia has more than quadrupled.
• Every year, about 90,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with lymphoma.
• Every year, there are an estimated 35,000 new cases of myeloma diagnosed in the U.S.

Observing Blood Cancer Awareness Month

Observing Blood Cancer Awareness begins with a person assessing their personal risk of developing one of these cancers. This can be done by visiting a doctor—a doctor who will examine that person’s family history, the presence of any genetic disorders, whether the person smokes or not, whether they’re taking immune-suppressing drugs, and whether they’ve been exposed to radiation.

People should also immediately visit their doctor if they experience any potential symptoms of blood cancer. Symptoms include persistent fatigue, unexplained weight loss, difficulty catching breath, fever, lymph node swelling, or night sweats.

This is also a good month for people to donate their time or money to organizations researching blood cancers. And we also recommend that people spread the word about this month using the hashtag #BloodCancerAwarenessMonth on their social media feeds.