Fox Chase Cancer Center

Oncologist Ubaldo Martinez doesn't have enough time to address all the special needs of the growing number of elderly cancer victims who seek his help, even though he spends 90 minutes with patients the first time and 30 during subsequent visits. It's all he can do to explain their disease and its treatments to them, but so many other things can affect how they'll do. How many drugs are they taking? Are they frail? Or robust enough to race their grandkids up a hill? Do they have dementia?

For health-conscious men of a certain age, what could be more prudent than taking vitamins and getting screened for prostate cancer? Not doing those things. That's the disillusioning take-home message from back-to-back reports on prostate cancer, the malignancy diagnosed in one out of every six American men. A major national study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that selenium and vitamin E supplements do not ward off the disease - and vitamin E alone can somehow promote it. Less than a week ago, an influential federal panel recommended against screening with the prostate specific antigen (PSA)

Cancer survivors and their family and friends held a 20-mile bike ride Saturday, raising $3,000 for the Fox Chase Cancer Center. Cheryl and Clyde Croasdale, at left, get off their shared mount after finishing, and Ed McBlain, above, drinks water on a break near the Delaware. One hundred bikers joined the ride.

Another legal roadblock to the expansion plans of Fox Chase Cancer Center makes it incumbent on the Nutter administration to work closely with officials on an alternative solution. The state Supreme Court ruled against Fox Chase's request for an expedited appeal of a lower court's decision that rejected the expansion. Cancer center officials had hoped a quick appeals process could put their construction project back on track. In December, Philadelphia Orphans Court Judge John W. Herron decided that Fox Chase cannot use 19.4 acres of 65-acre Burholme Park to expand its campus.

Temple University Health System revealed in a conference call that it has agreed to pay $83.8 million for the Fox Chase Cancer Center and immediately invest $30.9 million to expand Fox Chase into Temple's neighboring Jeanes Hospital. Health system president and chief executive Larry Kaiser, who arrived less than a year ago, has high expectations from the deal, announced in December, saying that his vision was for revenue at Fox Chase to reach $1 billion in five years, from $350 million in the year ended June 30. Temple had $994 million in revenue during the same period.

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.

Cancer specialist Timothy R. Talbot Jr., 72, died of cancer Monday at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, one of the country's premier cancer research and care facilities, which he had created 14 years ago. He was a resident of Haverford. As director of the Institute for Cancer Research in Fox Chase, a post he assumed in 1957, Dr. Talbot paved the way for the institute's merger in 1968 with the American Oncologic Hospital. In 1974, the facility became the Fox Chase Cancer Center. Dr. Talbot was its president until 1980.

Doreen Benedict sought treatment for her breast cancer at Fox Chase Cancer Center, more than an hour from her home in Mount Laurel, based on the recommendation of a friend. While the Northeast Philadelphia hospital is happy to get such word-of-mouth publicity, starting Monday it wants prospective patients to know about an even more concrete source of information: Hard numbers on its website. Fox Chase is posting graphs that indicate how many of its patients were alive five years after treatment for four common cancers: breast, prostate, lung, and colorectal.

A judge's ruling against Fox Chase Cancer Center's plans to expand into Burholme Park should prompt the city and the institution to find another solution. Philadelphia Orphans Court Judge John W. Herron decided that Fox Chase cannot use 19.4 acres of the 65-acre city park to expand its campus in the Northeast. The judge said state law requires the city to hold dedicated parkland in public trust for the community's use. City Council and Mayor Nutter in March approved Fox Chase's plans to use a portion of the park for a $1 billion expansion over 25 years.

Twice a week, Courtney Haviland, 16, travels to a cancer center above Cottman Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia to sort through piles of family medical histories. She believes that upgrading the medical histories doctors compile from patients could provide important hereditary clues to predicting who will get cancer. The junior at Abington Friends School in Montgomery County makes time in her crowded schedule to work as a student scientist at the renowned Fox Chase Cancer Center on Burholme Avenue because she wants to help others.

Oncologist Ubaldo Martinez doesn't have enough time to address all the special needs of the growing number of elderly cancer victims who seek his help, even though he spends 90 minutes with patients the first time and 30 during subsequent visits. It's all he can do to explain their disease and its treatments to them, but so many other things can affect how they'll do. How many drugs are they taking? Are they frail? Or robust enough to race their grandkids up a hill? Do they have dementia?

Beginning Sunday, The Inquirer and Philly.com will present 21 profiles over the next 21 days of participants in the Broad Street Run. The race, on May 6, is considered the country's most popular 10-mile run, attracting more than 40,000 people . They will race downhill from near Einstein Medical Center to the Navy Yard. Brian McShane felt his relationship with his father-in-law, Jim McDonald, was unlike any one else's. "A friendly basketball game would turn into an all-out do-or-die match," said Brian.

Liselotte Mezger-Freed, 86, a research biologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center from 1966 to 1977, died of Alzheimer's disease Saturday, March 17, at Crosslands, a retirement community near Kennett Square. A son, Michael, said in an interview that "in the 1960s and '70s, she developed methods for removing one-half of the DNA from frog-egg cells and keeping them alive in a dish. " "This enabled her to study how chemicals cause mutations in DNA, with broad relevance to human cancers caused by chemicals found in tobacco smoke and in the environment," he said.

Temple University Health System revealed in a conference call that it has agreed to pay $83.8 million for the Fox Chase Cancer Center and immediately invest $30.9 million to expand Fox Chase into Temple's neighboring Jeanes Hospital. Health system president and chief executive Larry Kaiser, who arrived less than a year ago, has high expectations from the deal, announced in December, saying that his vision was for revenue at Fox Chase to reach $1 billion in five years, from $350 million in the year ended June 30. Temple had $994 million in revenue during the same period.

Francis J. "Jay" McKay, 76, an executive with Fox Chase Cancer Center for 30 years, died of heart failure Saturday, Dec. 17, at Abington Memorial Hospital. Mr. McKay played a leading role in building Fox Chase from a community hospital into a comprehensive cancer-treatment center that sees more than 7,900 new patients a year, said Christine Wilson, who worked with him for 28 years. He was a central figure in bringing together the Institute for Cancer Research and the American Oncologic Hospital in 1974 to form Fox Chase.

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.

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.

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 assemble two storied Philadelphia healthcare insitutions, which both have faced fiscal difficulties lately. Temple, based in North Philadelphia, will get a nationally-recognized research partner that will enable the system to create a cancer unit at Temple's Jeane's Hospital. Fox Chase, which has made several attempts to expand, will achieve that, taking over some 30,000 square feet of space at Jeanes.