Soirée en or

The Montreal General Hospital Foundation is pleased to announce its annual fundraising event, Soirée en or, to be held December 5 at the Four Seasons Hotel. This year’s theme will be a special “Tropical” evening. 

Co-Chairs

• Dominic Costantini
• Heidi Hollinger

Fundraising Committee Members

• Si Chen
• Alexandra Schwartz
• Emiliya Mashkovtseva

This event aims to gather the community in support of cutting-edge research and vital care for people with lung, stomach and esophageal cancers. 

Every year, this gala raises funds for the Division of Thoracic and Upper Gastrointestinal Surgery at the McGill University Health Centre, headed by Dr. Lorenzo Ferri at the Montreal General Hospital.  Dr. Ferri and his team are working on building a pan-cancer, pan-Canadian Precision Oncology Platform. The current trial-and-error approach to chemotherapy drug selection unnecessarily exposes a significant proportion of patients to toxic drugs which don’t work for them. To replace this, Dr. Lorenzo Ferri and his team at the MGH grow a replica of a patient’s tumour in the lab and test hundreds of drugs on it to identify the most effective treatment for that patient’s specific tumour. His lab team have a five-year plan to shorten and perfect the process, gain approval for use as the new standard of care for esophageal and gastric cancers, then to expand to multiple other types of cancer, while serving cancer centres across Canada. 

Dr. Jonathan Spicer is a member of Dr. Ferri’s team. He wants to overcome postal code discrimination for thoracic cancer patients. Forty-two hospitals from Gaspé to Gatineau refer patients with complex thoracic cancers to the MUHC but survival rates are lower for those living outside of Montreal. Why? They don’t have local access to the latest treatments and higher quality of care is available in clinical trials run in Montreal. Trials require weekly scans and checkups to monitor disease progression. For most, it’s too far to travel and too expensive. Local community hospitals aren’t staffed to offer clinical trials to their patients. 

Help us with our goal of transforming outcomes for cancer patients, especially for thoracic cancers and thus have a major impact on the lives of so many in our community. 

Your generous support advances cutting-edge treatment at one of North America’s most comprehensive Thoracic Surgical Oncology programs. 

All funds raised this year are assigned to the campaign with Cedars Together Against Cancer.  

Can’t attend? Donate in lieu of your attendance.