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Kicking Off the 2013 Susan G. Komen Global Race for the Cure
Today we’re announcing a neat new partnership in the Washington, D.C., area, where we also today announced $1.5 million in community grants for the National Capital Area.
Washington Redskins’ wide receiver Josh Morgan and Arrelious Benn (newly of the Philadelphia Eagles) joined us at a press event today to say they’re going to “Make Mom Proud” by forming a Race team for the May 11 Global Race.Morgan is honoring his godmother, a triple negative breast cancer survivor. Since 1990, we’ve invested $33 million to community health programs in the Washington, D.C. area. The District has one of the highest breast cancer death rates in the country, making it critical that we continue to raise funds to support treatment programs for under-served women.
Thanks to the Global Race, we were able to reach more than 115,000 women, and to screen another 40,000, through community outreach programs in the National Capital Area.
A prime example of your dollars at work is Komen grantee George Washington Cancer Institute, whose Cancer Survivorship Initiative has already helped almost 1,000 low-income and uninsured women throughout the area with screenings and support through breast cancer treatment.
These types of partnerships allow us to further our mission in the D.C. area, and we are proud to partner with so many organizations that share our passion for our mission to end breast cancer. A list of the new National Capital Area Community Grants can be found on our official press release about the event.
We hope Washington, D.C. will Make Mom Proud on Saturday, May 11 at the 2013 Global Race for the Cure! Register today!
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ASCO approaches an important milestone with the first CancerLinQ prototype
What if there was a place where cancer care teams could go to learn, in real time, how to make the best treatment decision for their patients? Where doctors in Michigan could learn if a new cancer treatment is proving effective for patients all across the country, or if younger women are responding better to a certain therapy than older women?Really, the most exciting and important opportunity here is this: what if there were a way to learn not only from the three percent of patients who participate in clinical trials, but the other 97 percent as well, and then share this knowledge with healthcare providers across the country, and to use what we’ve learned to set new treatment standards and guidelines?
This is a reality that the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and Conquer Cancer Foundation (CCF) are working toward with a ground-breaking, new rapid-learning system (RLS) for oncology care named CancerLinQ.
Recently, ASCO shared that this innovative project is approaching an important milestone – the completion of the first CancerLinQ prototype, filled with records from over 130,000 breast cancer patients and made possible in part by a $1 million grant from Susan G. Komen for the Cure. This means that once the final version of the CancerLinQ system is complete, regardless of the electronic health record source, delays in paperwork processing and/or any other obstacles, breast cancer care providers nationwide will be able to explore de-identified data from patients across the country, allowing them to make faster, better-informed decisions for their patients.
We still have a lot to learn about breast cancer, and Komen’s global research portfolio is looking for answers to some of the toughest questions regarding breast cancer prevention, early detection, triple negative breast cancer, metastasis and much more. But for now, it’s absolutely critical that we take what we already DO know about breast cancer treatment and care and make it accessible to patients and care providers everywhere. CancerLinQ provides us with a unique opportunity to share information that we have never been able to share before, ensuring that where a woman lives does not determine whether she lives and bringing us one step closer to a world without breast cancer.
ASCO announced the completion of the prototype this morning, March 27, at a stakeholder event. To view the event, please go to www.asco.org/bigdatawebcast.
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Voices of Impact – Dr. Ben Anderson
Dr. Ben Anderson, Seattle, WA – Researcher, Scientific Advisor
“Komen’s grant for $50,000 enabled us to hold a summit, bringing together experts from the United States and low and middle-income countries (LMICs) to discuss guidelines and principles for breast cancer care that could be implemented in countries around the globe.”
“The work is challenging, but we have and will continue to make incremental improvements. After all, you don’t get to the Olympics by it being your first race. You have to go step by step. It is real and it is achievable. How could I do anything else?”
In 1997, I was asked to join a group from the University of Washington on a trip to set up breast clinics in Ukraine. I had never been to Ukraine, and didn’t know much, but quickly realized that I had many misconceptions about what it truly meant to have “limited resources.” It became clear that, due to a lack of infrastructure, American and European guidelines for breast cancer screening and care fundamentally do not apply in the rest of the world. So, I asked, what do we do? How can a system be put together? The pursuit for answers to these questions became what is now known as the Breast Health Global Initiative (BHGI).
As our first funder in 2001, Susan G. Komen was absolutely critical in the development of this process. Komen’s grant for $50,000 enabled us to hold a summit, bringing together experts from the United States and low and middle-income countries (LMICs) to discuss guidelines and principles for breast cancer care that could be implemented in countries around the globe.
Over the next 10 years we worked to develop these guidelines. With terrible issues such as war and famine plaguing some of these countries, we realized the answer wasn’t providing clinics with expensive imaging machines or new molecular diagnostic labs. The key is education, and that’s not expensive. Greater knowledge of the disease would mean women getting lumps examined earlier, and health care providers recognizing breast cancer at an early stage, instead of once it has broken through the skin. We needed to organize the systems in these countries so that, once they are ready, they are able to actually address the problem.
As a member of the Komen Scholars, a group of distinguished leaders in breast cancer research and advocacy, Komen continued to play a critical role in our journey to improve breast cancer care around the globe. In 2010, I received the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Scholar grant. This $750,000 grant supported the creation of a training program specifically designed for use in LMICs and aimed at providing: 1) greater knowledge of breast cancer, 2) specialty-specific training in surgery, oncology and nursing, and 3) coordination of multidisciplinary care.
In August of 2010, we had the opportunity to visit West Africa and put the program into action. The BHGI and HopeXchange, in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT), held a three-day training course for medical professionals and advocacy groups at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana. There were over 170 attendees from 18 institutions. Participants had the opportunity to attend hands-on training, which included surgical training for breast ultrasound and ultrasound-guided biopsy, as well as introductions to procedures we take for granted in the United States, including core needle biopsies, and most notably, the first-ever sentinel node biopsy procedure in Western Africa. Overjoyed by the success of this visit, we were eager to move forward, spreading the program to other countries.
In January of this year I had the privilege to present our work to the World Health Organization’s Guideline Review Committee, where they announced that they planned to use our structure as a point for developing international guidelines for breast cancer around the world, working to improve care and survival outcomes for patients everywhere.
Organizations like Komen are helping to bring together the people that want to, and have the ability to, fix this global problem. We can build the systems, and with Komen’s help, we can rally the public to join this fight as well. And with five million women projected to die of breast cancer in the next 10 years, it’s absolutely critical that we all focus on what’s at stake.
I have no doubt that, to some, this may seem like an impossible task. The work is challenging, but we have and will continue to make incremental improvements. After all, you don’t get to the Olympics by it being your first race. You have to go step by step. It is real and it is achievable. How could I do anything else?
*We would like to congratulate Dr. Anderson on his latest achievement. It was recently announced that Dr. Anderson will receive the National Consortium of Breast Centers’ Inspiration Award during the 2013 National Interdisciplinary Breast Conference, March 23-27, 2013. This award is given annually to the individual who embodies the spirit of selfless leadership and provides the inspiration for all other providers of breast health care. We look forward to Dr. Anderson’s continued leadership and research efforts in the fight against breast cancer!
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LIVE Twitter Chat about Prevention with Co-host AACR Today!
Join AACR and Susan G. Komen’s Twitter Chat #BCPrevention – March 19 at 2:00 p.m. ET
Every day, we take steps to prevent unwanted events from happening. We wear seat belts to prevent getting hurt in a car accident and we brush our teeth to prevent cavities. We would like to ensure some events never happen. But, the best we can do is lower the risk that they will.The same concept applies to breast cancer. Prevention, or “risk reduction,” mainly refers to lowering the risk of getting a disease rather than completely removing the risk. Learn more about prevention.
Today, March 19, let’s discuss breast cancer risk reduction, screening, and the latest in prevention research in our first-ever live Twitter chat. Our co-hosts this afternoon are our good friends at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and the conversation will be lead via the AACR and Komen Twitter accounts by:
Dr. Christopher Li, MD PhD
Breast Cancer Epidemiologist
Fred Hutchison Cancer Center
Chandini Portteus
VP, Research, Evaluation and Scientific Programs
Susan G. Komen for the CureWe want to hear your prevention-related questions! To join the fun, sign into Twitter; follow @KomenfortheCure and @AACR, and search for #BCPrevention. Make sure you include #BCPrevention when you tweet questions or comments for the chat.
What is a Twitter chat and how does it work? In a live chat, people use Twitter and a specific hashtag – in this case #BCPrevention – to discuss topics and ask questions around a specific subject.
If you want to ask a question or make a comment, you’ll need a Twitter account. Please sign up at twitter.com/signup to create a free account. If you don’t have an account, but would like to follow along, no problem! You can find us via search here: http://bit.ly/BCPrevention
What happens during a Twitter chat? At the event start time, go to twitter.com/search and type in the hashtag #BCPrevention. You’ll see a discussion thread of all tweets with that hashtag.
You can post questions or comments through your own Twitter account. Remember to include the hashtag #BCPrevention so that it shows up in the conversation. We will answer as many questions as we can, but may not be able to address all of them during this chat.
During this Twitter chat, we will not be able to answer questions about specific diagnosis or treatments. If you have general breast cancer or breast health questions, please contact our helpline at 1-877 GO KOMEN (1-877-465-6636).
Please discuss any conditions, treatment options, or medications with your doctor. If you have a medical emergency, seek immediate medical help or call 911. Please remember that all comments and questions are publicly available and accessible online. Before posting, consider how much personal information you would like to be viewable by others online.
Can’t participate, but have questions for Dr. Li and Chandini Portteus? Leave your questions in the comments on our official Facebook event page or tweet to us using #BCPrevention before the chat, and we will do our best to address them during the chat.
We hope to chat with you this afternoon!
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Race for the Cure Recap: 4 races & more than 25,000 participants!
With the cold weather behind us (well, most of us!) and spring just around the corner, many people are enjoying the outdoors – lacing up their shoes and getting some fresh air! Between Feb. 17 and March 9 more than 25,000 people participated in some amazing Race for the Cure events across the country, welcoming the beautiful weather while making an impact in the fight against breast cancer.In El Paso, TX, about 9,000 people came out for the 21st annual El Paso Race for the Cure on Sunday, Feb. 17. Breast cancer survivor “Nana” Sylvia Mirrop turned 82 years old just a few days after participating in her 16th consecutive Race! Cheerfully wearing a sign on her back that read “Last Place ‘n’ Proud!” Nana’s passion and commitment to the cause inspired many in attendance. KFOX 14 covers the event.
Wilmington, NC, saw its very first Race for the Cure on March 2nd, bringing together 2,500 people to the historic waterfront district of downtown of the “Port City.” The Race course took participants along the cobblestone streets and past waterfront views of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge, the retired U.S.S. North Carolina as well as ships of all sizes docked at port! The event also had participants from 18 states and surpassed its fundraising goal, raising more than $250,000! Greater Wilmington Business Journal, Port City Daily and WECT 6 highlight the Race and events leading up to the big day. Congratulations to the Komen NC Triangle Affiliate on a successful inaugural event.
A few hundred miles away from Wilmington, hundreds of people decked out in pink packed LSU’s campus for the 17th annual Baton Rouge Race for the Cure. More than 15,000 people showed their pink pride, gathering to raise money for breast cancer research (something of great importance to participants, given that Louisiana leads the nation in deaths caused by breast cancer). With a one-mile fun run, the 5K run and walk and a jambalaya competition (yum!), survivors, runners and
supporters concluded the event with a parade and a celebration for the survivors. The Daily Reveille, FOX 44 and The Advocate covered the event.
The emcee at the Southwest Florida Race on March 9 described the scene as a “sea of pink” as thousands of participants, including more than 400 breast cancer survivors, gathered at the Coconut Point shopping center in their pink caps, shirts and beads to honor survivors and raise funds for community programs and breast cancer research. Naples News features the story of several survivors who shared their personal passions for the fight against breast cancer. WINK also covered the event.
There are many more Races coming up very soon – maybe even one near you! Check our website to see where your nearest Race is being held and join people across the country as we walk, jog and run to end breast cancer forever.
