Phoenix Children’s receives $75,000 for cancer research
Jul 8, 2014, 3:56 PM | Updated: Jul 10, 2014, 11:34 am
PHOENIX — Phoenix Children’s Hospital received a donation toward cancer research, which its physicians say could go a long way in finding new treatments.
Tom Scheurn, president of the Valley Hyundai Dealers Association, presented a check to PCH Attending Physician Pooja Hingorani on Tuesday as part of Hyundai’s Hope on Wheels program.
“We’re excited to be here today to present Dr. Pooja Hingorani with a donation check of $75,000 and hold our signatures handprint ceremony to honor the brave children receiving treatment here at Phoenix Children’s Hospital,” Scheurn said.
The $75,000 will go toward research into treatments of a childhood and adolescent bone cancer called osteosarcoma, a disease that kills thousands of kids each year, Hingorani said.
“Almost 10,000 or more kids are diagnosed each year in this country and almost 20 percent of those kids will die of their disease,” she said. “I think that is one too many kids.”
Hingorani hopes PCH can move forward with developing new types of treatments for osteosarcoma. Current treatments are limited and antiquated.
“Treatment options for the last several decades have been very, very limited,” she said. “We used the same three drugs over and over again and in the setting where these three drugs fail and the tumor comes back or progresses, we really don’t have other good treatment options.”
The money is the second donation given to Hingorani, but the first that will go toward studying osteosarcoma.
