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SISKO FOUNDATION PRESENTS UNC's LINEBERGER COMPREHENSIVE CANCER CENTER $10,000 GRANT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2006

Contact:

Raleigh - The Sisko Foundation has presented Carolyn Sartor MD of the UNC Cancer Hospital's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center of grant of $10,000 towards their Partial Breast Intra-operative Radiotheraphy (IORT) trials. Their program studies the safety and efficacy of a single-dose IORT delivered before breast cancer tumor removal, and investigates the effeect of radiation treatment on cancer and adjacent normal tissue. At the same time, ongoing molecular analysis and data collection enables more detailed study of how radiation affects key radiation-response pathways in breast cancer, which will further the understanding of exactly how radiation affects tumor vs. normal cells. This knowledge can help determine the best way to deliver radiation to the tumor while protecting the normal tissue following IORT. They have also discovered that a fundamental DNA damage and repair signaling protein is activated in the normal tissue, but not in the tumor tissue.

The ability to target tumors with higher and higher doses of radiation while protecting surrounding normal tissue has been an ongoing challenge in breast cancer treatments. That's why Sisko Foundation thinks this IORT study is so important!

UNC Lineberger is one of 38 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, and one of 8 specialized Programs of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Breast Cancer in the country. The Breast Center takes a multidisciplinary approach to diagnosing and treating patients with breast cancer. Members of the program include physicians from surgical oncology, plastic surgery, medical oncology, as well as radiologists, pathologists, reconstructive surgeons, oncology nurses, a geneticist, physicial therapists, and a social worker.