The Patricia Cronin Foundation

Foundation Sponsors Second Annual Cronin Lecture
and Awards 2006 Grants

The Board made the following grant awards for 2006:

Cancer Connection, Florence, MA - An Award of $3,000

The Foundation has worked with Cancer Connection for four years. This nonprofit in the Northampton, MA, area, applied for a grant to fund its Ovarian Cancer Support Group facilitator, Vivien Weiss, as well as pay registration fees and travel expenses for members of the support group to attend Camp-Mak-A-Dream in Missoula, Montana.

Boston Medical Center - An Award of $2,000

Boston Medical Center (formed from the merger of Boston City, BU Medical Center and the Specialty and Rehab Hospital) has a mission of universal access. About 50% of its patients are uninsured and nearly 70% are minorities. Last year, BMC provided more than $352 million in free health care. BMC applied to the Foundation for a grant to establish a Mind-Body Support Group for ovarian cancer patients. The group will include families, primarily daughters who accompany their mothers.

Dr. Evelyn Fleming, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Division of Gynecologic Oncology - An Award of $2700

Dr. Fleming is an oncology fellow at Brigham and Women's who proposes to study the barriers to implementation of a fairly new intraperitoneal chemotherapy regimen. This protocol involves delivering chemotherapy directly into the abdominal cavity via a catheter. It has been proven to increase the ovarian cancer patient's survival by up to 15 months, but many physicians and patients appear to be skeptical about its use. Dr. Fleming hopes to identify the patient and physician barriers to use of this regimen and to evaluate patient decision-making that patients undergo when considering this therapy. The study aims to answer a number of questions surrounding the way that chemotherapy is administered to ovarian cancer patients.