Cancer Care

Fox Chase Cancer Center officials announced last week that they would link their cancer programs and research facilities with two suburban hospitals - Montgomery Hospital in Norristown and North Penn Hospital in Lansdale. The projects, which include the construction of a $2.5 million, 10,000- square-foot outpatient building on the campus of Montgomery Hospital, will give patients access to "the most technologically advanced cancer care available," said Julia Goplerud, a spokeswoman for Fox Chase.

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.