Northwell Cancer to sponsor 4 Lustgarten walks
Pancreatic cancer survivors and victims' loved ones participate in the 2018 Lustgarten Pancreatic Cancer Research Walk at Jones Beach. Credit: James Carbone
The Northwell Health Cancer Institute said it will be the exclusive hospital sponsor for four New York metro area fundraising walks to be held by the Lustgarten Foundation in 2020.
Northwell will also sponsor other Lustgarten fundraising events during the year.
Northwell will team with Lustgarten in supporting its community walks, which together drew more than 10,000 participants last year with the goal of increasing awareness about pancreatic cancer, promoting early detection, treatment advances and innovative research.
In 2019, the walks sponsored by Northwell raised nearly $2 million for pancreatic cancer research.
Northwell didn't disclose how much it spent on the sponsorship. It will sponsor the following Lustgarten Pancreatic Cancer Research Walks in 2020:
About 57,000 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2020. Because the cancer tends to spread silently before diagnosis, it has one of the highest mortality rates. It’s expected that 47,000 people will die from the disease in the United States this year.
“With such low survival rates, it’s critical for Northwell to collaborate with the Lustgarten Foundation and experts in the oncology field to increase public awareness and move forward with novel research aimed at offering more pancreatic cancer clinical trials with the shared goal of finding a cure for this insidious disease,” Richard Barakat, physician-in-chief and director of the Northwell Health Cancer Institute and senior vice president of the health system’s Cancer Service Line, said Monday.
In June 2019, Northwell’s Cancer Institute launched its Pancreatic Cancer Center. The center features a multidisciplinary team of surgical, medical and radiation oncologists, gastroenterologists, interventional radiologists, pathologists, endocrinologists, genetic counselors, social workers and nutritionists, along with pain management and palliative specialists.
"We plan to build the leading pancreatic cancer center in the United States," Barakat said, adding that "pancreatic cancer is a health care crisis."
Kerri Kaplan, president and CEO of the Lustgarten Foundation, said “sponsorships, like the one from Northwell, ensure that we can continue making advancements that are already improving patient outcomes and enabling some patients to live longer. Our collaboration with Northwell extends to working together on a clinical trial that will bring new hope to patients. Together, we stand committed to changing the survival statistics for this disease.”
The foundation was created in 1998 in honor of Marc Lustgarten, the former vice chairman of Cablevision Systems Corp. and chairman of Madison Square Garden, who died of pancreatic cancer.
James Dolan, executive chairman of the Madison Square Garden Co. and former chief executive of Cablevision, and Charles Dolan, executive chairman of AMC Networks and former chairman of Cablevision, helped establish the foundation.
For more information, lustgarten.org.
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