When Elizabeth Sperling
was dying from ovarian cancer in January 2000, she asked
her friend Sue Leahy to set up her memorial fund with The
Lynne Cohen Foundation for Ovarian Cancer Research. She
liked the Foundation's research platform, particularly their
funding of an early detection test. Presently, there is
no way to detect ovarian cancer in its early stages. Elizabeth
knew that any hope of changing this disease from deadly
to curable lay in early detection.
When Elizabeth was just seven years old, her mother died
from breast cancer. Thirty-eight years later, at the age
of forty-five, Elizabeth died from ovarian cancer. Often
when multi-generational family members have these cancers,
they carry a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, or there
may be other genes involved.
Because Elizabeth had an increased risk for breast and/or
ovarian cancer, early detection might have saved her life.
Many of the female family members of women diagnosed with
breast and ovarian cancer have a high or increased risk
for these diseases. The Lynne Cohen Preventive Care Clinics
opened at USC/Norris Comprehensive Center in Los Angeles
and NYU Medical Center in New York for this reason. Keeping
in mind what Elizabeth would have wanted, all the funds
raised for The Elizabeth Hill Sperling Memorial Fund have
been donated to the Lynne Cohen Preventive Care Clinics
at NYU and Norris Cancer Center, and also to research for
a novel therapy at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston,
Texas.
