The Sanatoga Post

POTTSTOWN PA – As Friday night’s (Oct. 21, 2011) football game between Pottsgrove and Pottstown high schools approaches, both the Falcon and Trojan teams want their fans to be thinking “pink.”

During the varsity game that starts at 7 p.m. in the stadium at Pottsgrove High, Kauffman Road, Pottstown PA, players and staff members of both teams will join in a community-wide awareness program to show those afflicted by cancer, as well as those who have survived it, that “they are never far from our thoughts,” Pottsgrove Athletic Director Gary DeRenzo says.

• This event has been added to The Post calendar.

Pink is the favored color of breast cancer survivors. For Friday’s contest the Pottsgrove Falcons will wear pink jerseys, while the Pottstown Trojans will wear pink tape accessories on their uniforms. Pink balloons will adorn the entrance to the stadium. Cancer awareness posters will be displayed by the Pottsgrove SNAP Team.

There will be pink-related fund-raising efforts, too, with proceeds to benefit the Phoenixville Cancer Center.

• Pottsgrove’s student government will host a “pink tailgate party” outside the high school cafeteria area from 5:30-6:30 p.m., featuring food, drink and music before the start of the game.
• Members of Pottsgrove’s National Honor Society will be sell pink T-Shirts promoting the event at a cost of $10. They also will also be doing face painting and pink hair extensions with the help of Salon Twenty-Two owner and 1995 Pottsgrove grad Tracy Reinhart Heebner and her staff.

The cancer center “is a grass-roots program that utilizes every dollar on families in need,” DeRenzo explained. It serves meals to those who are unable to cook for themselves. It travels to homes of those in treatment to transport patients to appointments, and provides help to clean homes so they do not fall into disrepair. “In other words, they support all those everyday things that many of us take for granted,” he added.

“We hope (area residents) will attend and support not only high school football, but also students and community making a difference in the lives of those fighting cancer,” DeRenzo said.

Photo from Google Images

DOING THEIR PART IN THE FIGHT – Staff members and residents of the Frederick Mennonite Community, 2849 Big Rd., Frederick PA, took a fund-raising walk Friday (Oct. 15, 2010) around the hallways and paths of the facility to help support the fight against breast cancer. Walkers celebrated afterward with a small party they enjoyed with friends, family members and community employees. October is being observed as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The walk in Frederick coincided with the start of the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s three-day Walk For The Cure, from the Philadelphia suburbs into Center City.

Photo from Frederick Mennonite Community.

PHILADELPHIA PA – Women with newly diagnosed breast cancer who receive a breast MRI (magnetic resonance image) are more likely to receive a mastectomy after their diagnosis and may face delays in starting treatment, according to a Fox Chase Cancer Center study appearing in the August edition of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

PMMC's Dr. Frank Song.

Pottstown Memorial Regional Cancer Center on East High Street, Pottstown PA, is affiliated with Fox Chase to provide local cancer research, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Fox Chase researchers found that routine use of MRI scans, despite the lack of evidence of their benefit, increased significantly in newly diagnosed women between 2004 and 2005, and again in 2006. “We’re concerned that the well-documented false-positive rate with MRIs may be leading, or misleading, women into choosing mastectomies,” said Dr. Richard J. Bleicher, a breast cancer surgeon at Fox Chase.

“Many of these women would have been candidates for a procedure known as a lumpectomy,” noted Dr. W. Frank Song, co-medical director of Pottstown Memorial Regional Cancer Center. “While mastectomy involves removal of all or most of the breast and the need for reconstructive surgery, lumpectomy is a type of breast-sparing surgery that offers women a very effective and appropriate option for treating their breast cancer.”

“In the community hospital setting, where we often see patients at the point of screening and diagnosis, it is important for us to be on top of key research such as this study about breast MRIs,” Song added.

Photo supplied by PMMC

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