Avon walkers help Ben Taub breast cancer patients ‘navigate’ care, support BCM research
Reported March 17, 2009
HOUSTON — A diagnosis of breast cancer is tough enough for any woman, but navigating the health care system compounds the problem.
Now, a woman newly diagnosed with breast cancer in the Harris County Hospital District has a guide or navigator, thanks to participants in the upcoming Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. A $150,000 grant to the Lester and Sue Smith Breast Center in the Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston will help recruit those guides called patient navigators. The grant will be awarded in ceremonies at this years Avon Walk in Houston, scheduled April 4-5.
In addition, nearly $150,000 raised in the walk will help support research into the effects of pregnancy on breast cancer risk now ongoing in the laboratory of Dr. Daniel Medina, professor of molecular and cellular biology at BCM.
The patient navigators will enable health information to be collected in advance of appointments and would free up technicians to do more screening, said Dr. C. Kent Osborne, director of the Smith Breast Center and the Duncan Cancer Center. This is especially important because our patient base is expanding due to the economic downturn.
The navigators will be part of a Breast Center program that supports underserved women in the Harris County Health District.
The program, called Pink 4 Life, provides assistance for medically under or uninsured women who are undergoing treatment for breast cancer at Ben Taub General Hospital. It aims to increase awareness and raise funds to expand services such as screening, diagnosis and treatment.
Pink 4 Life was started by the Breast Center Advisory Council at BCM and is supported by the Pink Ribbon House fundraiser, the Kappa Kappa Gamma Charitable Foundation and the Avon Foundation for Women.
Pink 4 Life benefits patients being treated for breast cancer in the Harris County Hospital District, said Dr. Jenny C.N. Chang, professor of medicine and medical director of the Breast Center at BCM. The funds raised benefit our patients facing a difficult illness. We are particularly grateful for that kind of help.
“The money raised by the walk will help support our study on defining those changes in the breast that are permanently induced by a pregnancy, said Medina. Our goal is to define a set of changes that will have prognostic significance for the protective state and can provide a useful and inexpensive tool for screening.”
Additional support for the Ben Taub Breast Oncology Clinic comes from the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure.