Terry Mathais (with the Aflac duck)

May 2, 2006

Last year, the Aflac Cancer Center in Atlanta treated over 300 children newly diagnosed with cancer, over 1,000 children with sickle cell disease and more than 350 patients with bleeding and clotting disorders. Its outpatient facilities recorded over 22,000 visits.

The blood and marrow transplant program at the center performed over 70 transplants..

"Another way of looking at this," Terry Mathais told Putnam Rotarians at their noon luncheon today, is a second chance for life for 70 children who otherwise would not be alive today."

The Aflac Cancer Center has enrolled more than 550 children in its cancer survivor program, Mathais told the group, a program which helps children to deal with the effects of treatment.

This year the Aflac Center was ranked among the top three pediatric hematology/oncology programs in the country by Child magazine.

"With Aflac team support," Mathais told the group, "the Atlanta center is able to provide some of the best research, clinical trials, experimental therapies and treatment protocols in the country."

More children are "thriving and surviving" than ever before. During the past 45 years the survival rate has climbed from 20 percent to more than 70 percent today.

The Aflac Center has been recognized for having cure rates which are two to three percent above the national average.

Mathais is an Associate with Aflac/Voluntary Employee Benefits.