Cancer Care

ATLANTA - Blacks and other minorities with cancer are more likely than whites to say they would spend everything they have on aggressive treatments that might prolong their lives, a study in the journal Cancer found. Researchers don't know why this is so and didn't ask, but some think it may reflect differences in beliefs about miracles, distrust of doctors among minorities and a misunderstanding of just how ugly and painful end-of-life care can be. About 80 percent of blacks said they were willing to use up all their money to extend their lives, compared with 72 percent of Asians, 69 percent of Hispanics and 54 percent of whites.

One result of the increasing competition in the market for health-care services is that hospitals and doctors are trying to make treatment more convenient and appealing for patients. From the offering of valet parking to the provision of improved hospital menus, the word is out: Treat the patient right or risk losing him to a competitor. Now comes the latest example of this trend - outpatient cancer-treatment centers that are open around the clock, offer a comprehensive array of clinical and diagnostic services and even serve snacks to patients.

Janet Knowles and Kimberly Fisher are breast cancer survivors. The importance of effective treatment is a subject they know intimately, and it's what brought them out Tuesday with Gov. Christie and other political and community leaders to mark the formal groundbreaking for the Cooper Cancer Institute in downtown Camden. The two attribute their survival to Cooper and hope that more patients with all types of cancer will get care with the expansion of the institute to Martin Luther King Boulevard and Haddon Avenue, where work is under way. "It's a special day ... long overdue," said Knowles, a Moorestown resident who contributed $5 million in 2006 to fund the Janet Knowles Breast Cancer Center, headquartered at Cooper University Hospital's Voorhees facility.

Officials at St. Mary Medical Center said yesterday that they were spending $13.2 million on five new high-tech reasons for Bucks County residents to get cancer care near home instead of in Philadelphia. The Langhorne hospital also has hired a breast surgeon, Andrea Barrio, to replace Beth DuPree, who left St. Mary to become chief executive officer and medical director of the Comprehensive Breast Institute at DSI of Bucks County. Doctors at that for-profit center, which is well-stocked with equipment itself and about a 15-minute drive from St. Mary in Bensalem, focus on breast cancer and cosmetic procedures.

This year, Fox Chase Cancer Center physicians will treat more than 6,500 people who have received a cancer diagnosis. Ten years from now, we expect to treat as many as 12,000 new patients a year. If we are to continue offering the best cancer care to an increasing number of patients, we need to expand and grow. To make that possible, Fox Chase has proposed expanding into a portion of Burholme Park, an area that adjoins our campus in Northeast Philadelphia. This plan is the result of a two-year process in which we brought together leading medical experts, scientists and administrators, and asked them to think about what would comprise great medicine and science in the future; what we would need to do to remain one of the nation's finest centers for cancer prevention, research and treatment; and why, how and where we would grow to achieve that vision.

A new genetic test to gauge the aggressiveness of prostate cancer may help tens of thousands of men each year decide whether they need to treat their cancer right away or can safely monitor it. The new test, which goes on sale Wednesday, joins another one that recently came on the market. Both analyze multiple genes in a biopsy sample and give a score for aggressiveness, similar to tests used now for certain breast and colon cancers. Doctors say tests like these have the potential to curb a major problem in cancer care - overtreatment.

Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center yesterday announced joint venture programs to extend sophisticated cancer care to patients of two suburban community hospitals. Fox Chase Cancer Center, on Burholme Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia, one of only 20 government-designated comprehensive cancer care centers in the nation, will work with Montgomery Hospital in Norristown and North Penn Hospital in Lansdale. "Most patients, 80 to 80 percent of cancer patients, seek cancer treatment at community hospitals near their homes, not academic or cancer center hospitals," said Thomas J. Keane, executive director of the Fox Chase Network, a subsidiary of Fox Chase Cancer Center.

In a sign of how far the science of cancer genomics has come, the University of Pennsylvania Health System will do genetic tests later this year on cancer cells of all patients with several types of cancer. Penn will test up to 48 genes in patients with melanoma, acute myelogenous leukemia, and brain and lung cancer, said Chi V. Dang, director of the Abramson Cancer Center. The results will reveal which patients could benefit from new drugs that work only for those with certain mutations.

BEFORE SHE got sick, Hannah Max was many things: stellar math and biology student, passionate horse rider, lover of sushi. Since her diagnosis with Stage IV, high-risk neuroblastoma - a rare and deadly childhood cancer that attacks the nervous system - the 13-year-old is now a medical trailblazer, too. And you, Daily News readers, are partially responsible for that. So thank you for what you've done, not just for Hannah but for other children in desperate need of cancer care in Philadelphia.

Embracing the promise of personalized medicine, Fox Chase Cancer Center is offering a high-tech DNA test that can identify the genetic mutations driving an individual patient's cancer. Other leading medical centers and biotech firms are launching similar tests, which should help doctors make cancer care more effective and less toxic. Experts say this customized approach will become increasingly important as the arsenal of drugs that target cancer genes grows. For patients at the forefront, however, the value of cutting-edge DNA testing is hard to predict.

A new genetic test to gauge the aggressiveness of prostate cancer may help tens of thousands of men each year decide whether they need to treat their cancer right away or can safely monitor it. The new test, which goes on sale Wednesday, joins another one that recently came on the market. Both analyze multiple genes in a biopsy sample and give a score for aggressiveness, similar to tests used now for certain breast and colon cancers. Doctors say tests like these have the potential to curb a major problem in cancer care - overtreatment.

Nora Situm, the 5-year-old Croatian child seeking an experimental leukemia therapy at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has overcome the first obstacle to qualifying for the treatment. Doctors have collected a big enough supply of her T cells, the immune cells that form the basis of the therapy, said Richard Aplenc, Nora's oncologist. The update came in a video statement released Friday by the hospital and Nora's parents - her mother, Giana Atanasovska, and father, Ivica Situm.

Embracing the promise of personalized medicine, Fox Chase Cancer Center is offering a high-tech DNA test that can identify the genetic mutations driving an individual patient's cancer. Other leading medical centers and biotech firms are launching similar tests, which should help doctors make cancer care more effective and less toxic. Experts say this customized approach will become increasingly important as the arsenal of drugs that target cancer genes grows. For patients at the forefront, however, the value of cutting-edge DNA testing is hard to predict.

In a sign of how far the science of cancer genomics has come, the University of Pennsylvania Health System will do genetic tests later this year on cancer cells of all patients with several types of cancer. Penn will test up to 48 genes in patients with melanoma, acute myelogenous leukemia, and brain and lung cancer, said Chi V. Dang, director of the Abramson Cancer Center. The results will reveal which patients could benefit from new drugs that work only for those with certain mutations.

  Revenue growth at area health systems was uneven in the fiscal year ended June 30, with the biggest systems showing strong gains while smaller competitors scraped out, at best, meager increases. Revenues from patients at Holy Redeemer Health System in Meadowbrook, for example, have been nearly flat since 2009. They were $336 million in the year ended June 30. That was $2 million more than in 2009 and $3.5 million less than in 2011. At Montgomery County neighbor Abington Health, patient revenues have been stuck at about $760 million for three years in a row, reflecting a widespread challenge that hospital executives attribute to changing medical-treatment methods and the weak economy.

Janet Knowles and Kimberly Fisher are breast cancer survivors. The importance of effective treatment is a subject they know intimately, and it's what brought them out Tuesday with Gov. Christie and other political and community leaders to mark the formal groundbreaking for the Cooper Cancer Institute in downtown Camden. The two attribute their survival to Cooper and hope that more patients with all types of cancer will get care with the expansion of the institute to Martin Luther King Boulevard and Haddon Avenue, where work is under way. "It's a special day ... long overdue," said Knowles, a Moorestown resident who contributed $5 million in 2006 to fund the Janet Knowles Breast Cancer Center, headquartered at Cooper University Hospital's Voorhees facility.

Fox Chase Cancer Center will become part of the Temple University Health System, officials announced Thursday. The combination, which is expected to close next summer, will join two prominent Philadelphia health-care institutions, both of which have faced fiscal difficulties lately. Temple, based in North Philadelphia, will get a nationally recognized research partner that could help it compete with other academic medical centers in the region. Fox Chase, which will keep its name, will get a bigger referral base for patients, room to expand at Temple's Jeanes Hospital next door, and a chance to save money as health-care reform further squeezes the dollars available for clinical care and research.

SAN ANTONIO - New research casts doubt on a popular treatment for breast cancer: a week of radiation to part of the breast instead of longer treatment to all of it. Women who were given partial radiation were twice as likely to need their breasts removed later because the cancer came back, doctors found. The treatment uses radioactive pellets briefly placed in the breast instead of radiation beamed from a machine. At least 13 percent of older patients in the United States get this now, and it is popular with working women.

BEFORE SHE got sick, Hannah Max was many things: stellar math and biology student, passionate horse rider, lover of sushi. Since her diagnosis with Stage IV, high-risk neuroblastoma - a rare and deadly childhood cancer that attacks the nervous system - the 13-year-old is now a medical trailblazer, too. And you, Daily News readers, are partially responsible for that. So thank you for what you've done, not just for Hannah but for other children in desperate need of cancer care in Philadelphia.