Cancer Center

Bobbie Burnett proudly displays the different designs her stained-glass angels have taken over the past 26 years. She gave her first angel as a gift to a friend with leukemia. Then she started selling angels to pay for Susie Lyttle's care. Burnett contributed only $200 to Lyttle before she died in 1983. Now Burnett has a loftier goal spelled out in gold lettering in the middle of the wall where her angels stand watch: to reach $1 million in total donations. Her 90 volunteers, who rotate shifts in her Annapolis studio three days a week, make angel figurines and pins, along with sun catchers of birds, flowers and other images.

Anne Arundel Medical Center has appointed Dr. Barry R. Meisenberg, the former head of the hematology-oncology division at the University of Maryland's Cancer Center, as the new director of its Geaton and JoAnn DeCesaris Cancer Institute. Martin L. Doordan, president and CEO of Anne Arundel Health System, said the hiring of Meisenberg reinforces the medical system's commitment to excellence in oncology care. "Recruiting a physician of national caliber such as Dr. Meisenberg was only possible because of the overall excellence of our programs, talent of our medical and nursing staffs and investment in our facilities," Doordan said.

Office of Planning to close today so it can move The county Office of Planning will be closed from noon today until Monday morning to enable it to move to new quarters. The office will be located in Suite 101 of the Jefferson Building, 105 W. Chesapeake Ave. in Towson. The office's phone numbers will remain the same. Because of the move, the Planning Board has canceled a meeting scheduled for Thursday. The next board meeting will be June 19 in Hearing Room 102 of the Jefferson Building.

Dr. Martin D. Abeloff, an internationally recognized oncologist who led the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center for 15 years, died of leukemia yesterday at the hospital where he spent most of his professional career. The Mount Washington resident was 65. An advocate of mammography as a means of reducing breast cancer mortality rates, he spent much of his professional career working to apply research findings to everyday medicine. Under his leadership, some 30,000 outpatients visited his center a year.

SAN ANTONIO -- Significantly fewer American women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003, and a drastic drop in the use of hormone therapy is the most likely reason, researchers reported yesterday. Breast cancer diagnoses dropped by 7 percent overall and by about 15 percent in women over 50, the group most likely to have been taking hormone therapy before a well-publicized federal warning scared millions into stopping in 2002. It won't be certain that the decreases are not an aberration until April, when figures for 2004 are released.

The Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins has been awarded $20 million to further its research into the genetic underpinnings of cancer. Coming two months after Hopkins researchers reported that they had sequenced the genomes of colon and breast tumors, the grant will help them explore the genetics of several other tumor types. "It's clear that the best way to understand the nature of cancer and how it occurs is through the study of genetic alterations," said Dr. Bert Vogelstein, who co-directs a cancer genetics laboratory with Dr. Kenneth Kinzler.

On June 21, 2006, THOMAS JOSEPH, JR., beloved son of the late THOMAS JOSEPH CASE, SR., and Dorothy Alice Barber Case; loving husband of Jacqueline T. Schrenker-Case; devoted father of daughter Courtney Taylor Case; brother of Sharon C. Amen; and uncle of niece Jennifer Anderson and nephew Brad Wash. A Memorial Service will be held on Friday June 30, 2006 at 1:00 P.M. at Grace Lutheran Church, 21 Carroll St., Westminster, MD 21157. Interment will be private. Memorial contributions may be made in his memory to the Kimmel Cancer Center, c/o John Hopkins Cancer Center, 100 N. Charles Street, 1 Charles Center, Suite 200, Baltimore, MD 21201.

Doctors who treat women with breast cancer are glimpsing the possibility of a vastly different future. After years of adding more and more to the regimen - more drugs, shorter intervals between chemotherapy sessions, higher doses - they are now wondering whether many women could skip chemotherapy. If the new ideas are validated by large studies, such as two that are just beginning, treatment of breast cancer would markedly change. Today, national guidelines call for giving chemotherapy to nearly every one of the nearly 200,000 women whose breast cancer is diagnosed each year.

On November 27, 2005, JOSEPH OLIVER MURPHY "Murph", retired veteran from the U.S. Navy after 30 years of service. Beloved husband of Susan H. Murphy. Also surviving children, Paul G. Murphy, Ronald S. Murphy, Margaret L. Hood, John M. Gaske, Joseph C. Rhodes III, and John R. Rhodes; seven grandchildren. Family will receive friends on Wednesday, November 30, from 3 to 5 and 7 to 9 P.M. at WITZKE FUNERAL HOME OF CATONSVILLE, INC., 1630 Edmondson Avenue, (1 mile west of Beltway exit 14), where the funeral will be held Thursday, December 1, at 11 A.M. Interment Lakeview Cemetery.