About Pediatric
Cancer Foundation

Started in 1970 as the Maxwell Leeds Pediatric Tumor Foundation, we are a nonprofit committed to making pediatric cancer a relic of the past. PCF works toward this vision by supporting the seminal research, doctors, and institutions where progress is made.

PCF is proof that individuals and communities can accomplish amazing things. In a time of underfunded hospitals and scarce government grants, our 200 volunteers raise vitally needed funds through an annual Walkathon, Luncheon, Evening Event series, and countless bake sales, bowl-a-thons, and satellite events.

In 2017 alone, these fundraisers have contributed half a million dollars to leading oncology institutions:

We want our donors to know what we’re up against:

• In the United States, approximately 10,400 children under the age of 15 — and roughly 3,700 adolescents between the ages of 15 and 19 — are newly diagnosed with cancer each year. That is about the equivalent of two classrooms diagnosed each school day.
• Childhood cancer rates have been incrementally rising for the past few decades, mostly due to improved detection. About 1,250 children younger than 15 are expected to die from cancer in 2017.
• Leukemia and tumors of the brain and nervous system, lymphatic system, kidneys, bones, and muscles are the most common childhood cancers.
• We are continuing to see late deaths of children presumed “cured” due to late relapses, toxicity, and secondary malignancy.
• For every six research dollars per patient with AIDS and every one research dollar per patient with breast cancer, a child with cancer receives 30 cents.
• Because of major treatment advances in recent decades, more than 80% of children with cancer now survive five years or more. This is a huge increase since the mid-1970s, when the five-year survival rate was about 58%. However, survival rates vary depending on the type of cancer and other factors.

Pediatric Cancer Foundation, known as the Maxwell Leeds Pediatric Tumor Foundation until well after 1982, was founded in 1970 by grateful parents whose son underwent surgery at Babies Hospital, New York Presbyterian Medical Center. (This hospital is now known as Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian.) These grateful parents established the Foundation after realizing that malignant pediatric tumors were extremely prevalent and that children afflicted in this way needed treatment with the most advanced medical techniques.

The Foundation started simply and utilized the services of devoted volunteers to perform every aspect of fund raising. The first group of Directors were the parents’ family, neighbors and friends, but in a relatively short period of time the membership expanded rapidly to over 40 committed individuals who gave their expertise, time, and support to achieve outstanding goals in basic and clinical research as well as care and treatment of children with cancer.