Nina Axelrad was born on March 24, 1960 and grew up in the Bethesda, MD area. She earned a Bachelors and Masters Degree from the University of Pennsylvania and then joined the Peace Corps serving in the Central African Republic where she taught health education to native public school teachers. While there she met another Peace Corps volunteer, Steve Hed. In 1998, she returned to the United States. Steve eventually followed her to Washington, D.C. and in 1992 they were married. Nina then worked as a teacher for emotionally disturbed children in Montgomery County and in 1994, Nina and Steve had a beautiful daughter, Natasha.
Everything seemed to be going well for them until December 1995, when Nina thought she was pregnant again. However, an examination by her Ob/Gyn doctor revealed that she was not pregnant, but instead she had a large abdominal mass. She had surgery in February 1996 at a suburban Maryland hospital. Unfortunately, she was found to have extensive tumor throughout the abdomen and underwent partial removal. Pathologic review was consistent with a high grade spindle cell sarcoma.
She was then referred to Paul Sugarbaker, at the Washington Cancer Institute at the Washington Hospital Center. In late March 1996, she underwent cytoreductive surgery and interperitoneal chemotherapy followed by post-operative chemotherapy. In August 1996, she finished treatment and went back to her normal activities. (Slide #2) She did well until February 1997 when she was found to have recurrence of disease with marked spread of the tumor, intraabdominally. She underwent further chemotherapy without success.
Nina died at age 37 leaving behind a loving husband and parents, as well as an extremely cute, now seven year old girl with the same inquisitiveness and adventurous spirit as her mother. Her family members were frustrated in finding out the rarity of her tumor, the lack of information available for the lay public, as well as the need for further education of primary care and Ob/Gyn physicians about these rare tumors. They also realized the need for better recognition, early diagnosis and referral, and new strategies for the treatment of sarcomas. It is with this in mind that they formed the Nina Axelrad Sarcoma Fund at the Washington Cancer Institute and are sponsoring this annual lectureship at the CTOS Meeting, a meeting where individuals from many different disciplines from all over the world can get together to discuss new developments in sarcomas which may lead to improved diagnosis, staging and treatment of these rare tumors.
CTOS Annual Meetings
1999
Paul Meltzer, MD
Sr. Investigator Cancer Genetics
National Human Genome Research Institute
2000
Murray F. Brennan, MD
Chief of Surgery
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
2001
Alan Van Oosterom, Ph.D.
UZKu Leuven, Belgium
EORTC Bone & Soft Tissue Sarcoma Group
2002
Herman Suit, MD
Department of Radiation Onocology
Massachusetts General Hospital
2003
Fred Eilber, MD
Dept. of Surgical Oncology
UCLA
2004
Jonathan Fletcher, MD
Brigham & Women’s Hospital
2005
Martine van Glabbeke
2006
Lee J. Helman, M.D.
Scientific Director for Clinical Research Center for Cancer
Research National Cancer Institute
2007
Marc Ladanyi, M.D.
Attending Pathologist and Chief, Molecular Diagnostics Service,
Department of Pathology, and
Member, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
2008
Paul Meyers, M.D.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Copyright © 2008 the Connective Tissue Oncology Society.