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St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Midwest Regional Office
4619 N. Ravenswood, #302
Chicago, IL 60640
773-784-6704
773-784-8745 Fax
www.stjude.org

Mission
The mission of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is to find cures for children with catastrophic illnesses through research and treatment. It is the first institution established for the sole purpose of conducting basic and clinical research into catastrophic childhood diseases, mainly cancer.

Facts and Statistics
St. Jude is the largest childhood cancer research center in the world in terms of the number of patients enrolled on research protocols and successfully treated.

Since its opening in 1962, St. Jude has treated more than 20,000 children from all 50 states and 60 foreign countries.

Research findings at St. Jude are shared freely with doctors and scientists all over the world.

St. Jude enjoys a worldwide reputation as a teaching facility. The medical and scientific staff published about 402 articles in academic journals in 2003.

St. Jude, which is non-sectarian, has approximately 4,500 patients in active status. It treats children without regard to race, religion, creed or ability to pay.

ALSAC/St. Jude is the fundraising arm of the hospital, and covers all costs not covered by insurance for medical treatment rendered at St. Jude. Families without insurance are never asked to pay.

The hospital's daily operating costs are approximately $923,000, which are primarily covered by public contributions.

Health Info
Since opening, St. Jude has developed protocols that have brought survival rates for childhood cancers from less than 20 percent to better than 70 percent overall.

In 1962, children suffering from Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia had a 4% chance of survival—today; they have an 80% chance of survival.

St. Jude pioneered a combination of chemotherapy, radiation and, when necessary, surgery to treat childhood cancers. The hospital continues to expand the use of bone marrow transplantation and gene therapy as treatments for pediatric cancers and genetic diseases.

St. Jude operates a bone marrow transplant program that enables doctors to perform more than 150 transplant infusions per year.

St. Jude was the first facility outside the National Institutes of Health to receive federal approval for research involving human gene therapy.

ALSAC/St. Jude Fundraising & Administrative Percentage
15.1%

Testimonials
At the age of 2, Kristopher began falling over backwards but not in any other direction. Although he did not feel or look sick, his mother took him to the pediatrician in their home town where he was diagnosed with an ear infection, given antibiotics and sent home to get well.

After two days on antibiotics with no change, Kristopher’s mom, Christine, returned to the doctor wanting an explanation. Three different doctors examined Kristopher, all reporting a different reason for the imbalance including an abnormal gait and cerebral palsy. Finally, after a week had passed, an MRI showed that Kristopher had a brain tumor the size of a tangerine and was diagnosed with medulloblastoma in December 1999.

“No one could tell me what was wrong,” said Christine. “After they finally were able to tell me, I knew I had to make quite a few life decisions in a short amount of time. When the doctor’s mentioned St. Jude as an option, I automatically decided to go there because I remembered the name.”

Within two days of discovering the tumor, Kristopher and his mom were taken by ambulance to LeBonheur Children’s Medical Center in Memphis where doctors removed the tumor during a 10-hour surgery.

“We didn’t get to see him again until midnight,” said Kristopher’s mom. “I couldn’t believe who I thought was a healthy child was hooked up to so many monitors and tubes.”

After recovering from surgery, Kristopher underwent 10 weeks of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation at St. Jude. During this time Kristopher couldn’t talk or walk.

“There were some really difficult times during Kristopher’s treatments,” said Christine. “The nurses and doctors we were with at least once a week became my support group and went above and beyond what they had to in order to keep me sane.”

By August 2000 Kristopher was talking, walking and running around with his older brother Aldrin. He finished his last round of chemotherapy on Wednesday, January 10, 2001. After 14 months of treatments, Kristopher will soon be able to go home.

“When I first came here I was so scared; I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t get emotional because I didn’t want it to cloud my judgements,” said Christine. “Now I can relax and get emotional because we’re almost done.”