Colleen Callahan, RN, MSN, CRNP

I have worked as a nurse practitioner in the Division of Oncology since 2000. My area of specialty is general oncology. During my years as a nurse practitioner I have taken care of patients with solid tumors, leukemias, and lymphomas. Over the past few years my role has focused more on caring for patients with leukemia and lymphoma. On the inpatient unit my role involved coordinating and providing care for children newly diagnosed with cancer and for those continuing treatment for cancer. Important aspects of my role included providing anticipatory guidance, teaching and educating patients and families, and providing consistency and continuity of care.

In my current role I am a member of the CART team. CART is new exciting therapy which involves engineering a patient’s T cells to enable them to target CD 19 + B cell leukemia. I am involved in following the patients throughout their experience here at CHOP from their initial consultation visit, T cell collection, T cell infusion, and monitoring and follow-up after T cell infusion.

I have presented many lectures that focus on various general oncology topics including leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, CART 19, neuroblastoma, osteosarcoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, Ewing’s sarcoma and stem cell collection.

I am the Nursing representative for a Children’s Oncology Group study which is comparing two different antifungal medications used to prevent fungal infections in patients with AML.