Cancer Care

A few years ago, several of Lindy Snider's friends and family members were battling cancer, undergoing chemotherapy and radiation, and lamenting what the treatment was doing to their skin. She remembers asking her good friend, the singer-songwriter Lauren Hart, who was being treated for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2000, "Why don't you ask your doctor for some cream?" Hart's answer was, "Well, there's nothing," Snider recalls. Perplexed that big pharmaceutical and cosmetics firms did not have a line of products geared to cancer patients, Snider, 46, began searching for information, and spoke to doctors and dermatologists.

The American Cancer Society and a national alliance of cancer centers have issued prostate-cancer treatment guidelines that translate technical medical information into concise, understandable advice for patients. The 50-page report is the second in a series of patient guidelines for the top 10 cancers. The guidelines are being made available through toll-free numbers and the Internet. The Cancer Society's partner in the project is the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN)

A failure of oversight and systemic problems in prostate-cancer care at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center caused 92 veterans to receive incorrect doses of radiation to treat their condition, triggering a federal investigation of the hospital's protocols. Most of the vets got significantly less than the prescribed dose from brachytherapy - the use of implanted radioactive seeds to kill cancer cells. Other patients received excessive radiation to nearby tissue and organs. Nearly all of the brachytherapy cases with incorrect doses were performed by a University of Pennsylvania doctor under contract to the VA. That radiation oncologist, Gary Kao, has not seen patients since the problem was discovered last year, said a Penn official.

It is vanishingly rare for an experimental treatment to wipe out advanced, recurrent cancer, then keep the disease from coming back. Yet therapies driven by CARs have been doing exactly that in a small but growing number of blood-cancer patients at the University of Pennsylvania and other centers. In simplest terms, a CAR - chimeric antigen receptor - is a synthetic genetic structure that programs the patient's immune cells to recognize and attack cancer. But there is nothing simple about these molecular taskmasters.

The tug of war was trench warfare for Dennis Hubal and his squad from Caesars Atlantic City Hotel-Casino yesterday as they battled during the annual Casinolympics fund-raising marathon. Teams of casino employees compete in a variety of contests on the Atlantic City beach and Boardwalk to benefit the Shore Memorial Hospital's Cancer Care Center. The Casinolympics has raised $112,000 since 1982.

TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Health System and the Fox Chase Cancer Center made their impending marriage official yesterday. The two institutions signed an agreement that would make the cancer center part of Temple's health system in a cooperative relationship expected to help both organizations, which have had recent financial difficulties. Fox Chase will expand its outpatient and surgical-care services in its own Northeast Philadelphia facility and in leased space at the adjacent Jeanes Hospital, a Temple affiliate since 1996.

In a daylong conference at the Fox Chase Cancer Center yesterday, more than 130 participants plotted strategies - from banning cigarette vending machines to compiling a directory of mammography services - to fight cancer in Philadelphia and the suburbs. "The hard part now is implementing it," said Robert Sharrar, assistant health commissioner for disease prevention at the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. In workshops during the program in Northeast Philadelphia, health-care professionals and community volunteers discussed ways to decrease deaths from breast cancer and smoking; improve poor people's access to quality cancer care, and reduce the risk of cancer through diet.

The American Cancer Society is recommending annual MRIs as well as mammograms for women whose close relatives have had breast cancer - part of new guidelines that could affect as many as 1.4 million women. The recommendation, prompted by advice from an expert panel, even includes some women whose aunts and grandmothers have had the disease - in addition to those with mothers and sisters who had breast cancer. It is the first time the Cancer Society has urged the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)

Fox Chase Cancer Center's plan to expand into neighboring Burholme Park is now in the hands of Judge John W. Herron of Philadelphia Orphans Court. Herron heard final arguments yesterday from lawyers representing neighbors who oppose leasing part of the park to the hospital, as well as from lawyers for Fox Chase and the city, which supports the deal. He asked both sides tough questions about their legal positions. When asked when he would rule on the controversial case, Herron smiled and said: "When I do, I do. I'll do my best.

The national credit crisis has claimed a small Bucks County hospital devoted to breast-cancer care. Leif Murphy, chief executive officer of Diversified Specialty Institutes, the for-profit, Nashville, Tenn., company that operates the Bensalem hospital, said DSI was "seeking additional capital" to keep the hospital open, but there was only a "remote chance" it would succeed. In a letter to the state Department of Labor and Industry, DSI said it planned to close the Comprehensive Breast Care Institute at DSI of Bucks County, which has 89 employees, on Feb. 4. A separate letter to the Pennsylvania Department of Health said it would close Feb. 6. The 120,000-square-foot, 24-bed center entered the region's highly competitive cancer-treatment market in April 2007 with a holistic approach combining high-tech equipment with spiritual support.