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Georgetown's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Capital Breast Care Center Pound the Pavement to Save Lives

Posted on: Saturday, 2 May 2009, 08:00 CDT

Team Awarded $750,000 by Avon Foundation for Breast Cancer Awareness

WASHINGTON, May 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Team leaders, Jeanne Mandelblatt, MD, MPH, and Harriet Weiner have joined 21 other dedicated women from the metro region to walk to raise funds and awareness of breast cancer. The team is composed of members from the Lombardi Comprehensive Care Center and the Capital Breast Care Center (CBCC), a community program of Lombardi.

The team has been training since last winter and will walk between 26.2 and 39 miles on May 2-3 in Washington, D.C. This year's route takes participants through the District of Columbia -- including a rest stop at Georgetown's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center -- and surrounding areas.

"We train, talk, laugh and share Motrin," jokes Mandelblatt. "We're looking forward to the walk and helping our community," adds Weiner. The team will also be walking in support of medically underserved women in our community.

Mandelblatt, Lombardi's associate director for Population Sciences, says her career has been centered on bringing change in health care and providing cancer care access to underserved populations. In 2004, she applied for -- and received -- a $1 million grant from the Avon Breast Cancer Foundation to fund the Capital Breast Cancer Center. Located in Southeast DC, the CBCC has screened more than 4,000 women for breast cancer since its inception. The Center has diagnosed 50 women and provided support navigating the complicated health and insurance systems to ensure they receive excellent care.

This year, Avon will grant the CBCC another $750,000 to support its mission of providing breast cancer screening to underserved women in the Washington, DC area. Part of this year's award will allow the Center to purchase a new digital mammography machine.

"The new machine allows us to see more women and provide quicker turnaround for them," said Beth Beck, MA, CHES, executive director of the CBCC.

The Center can currently see a maximum of 20 patients each day, but the new machine will allow them to screen up to 35 women on a daily basis. The upgrade will ensure the CBCC has the latest in mammography technology.

The Lombardi/CBCC team at this year's Avon Walk shares a vision of helping others -- family, friends, co-workers and their community. The team raised $40,000 and is among the top fundraising teams participating in the walk. Over the past year, the team sponsored bake sales and jewelry parties to raise funds. Mandelblatt also raises money for the team through her "Knit One, Cure One" initiative where she sells scarves that she makes, with all proceeds going to breast cancer research.

"We're all walking for different reasons," says Weiner. "There's a great sense of family and camaraderie."

About Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center

The Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of Georgetown University Medical Center and Georgetown University Hospital, seeks to improve the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer through innovative basic and clinical research, patient care, community education and outreach, and the training of cancer specialists of the future. Lombardi is one of only 41 comprehensive cancer centers in the nation, as designated by the National Cancer Institute, and the only one in the Washington, DC, area.

About Capital Breast Care Center

The Capital Breast Care Center, part of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, seeks to provide and maximize comprehensive culturally-appropriate breast cancer screening services to women of the DC metropolitan area, regardless of the ability to pay, through clinical services, education and research.

SOURCE Georgetown University Medical Center

Source: PR Newswire

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