Audrey Evans

Audrey Elizabeth Evans (6 March 1925 – 29 September 2022) was a British-born American pediatric oncologist who was known as the "Mother of Neuroblastoma." She was one of the co-founders of the original Ronald McDonald House in Philadelphia as well as a co-founder of Philadelphia's St James School. She spent most of her career working at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Evans is the subject of the 2025 feature film Audrey's Children which stars Natalie Dormer and won Best Feature Film, Tribeca X at the Tribeca Film Festival 2024.

Early life and education Audrey Elizabeth Evans was born on 6 March 1925 in York, England. She was the youngest of three children born into a middle-class family. Her sister was six years older than her and her brother two years older.

Evans trained at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in the early 1950s. She went to Johns Hopkins University to finish her medical training in 1955. She soon learned that this field was strictly for men and not women. In 1971, she created the Evans staging system for Neuroblastoma.

From 1969 to 1989, she served as chair of the Division of Oncology at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and in 1972 was appointed a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

Work Evans was known as the "Mother of Neuroblastoma" because of all of her work for neuroblastoma.

Evans described a staging system from one to four. Evans and D'Angio were the first to describe the phenomenon of spontaneous regression of widely spread neuroblastoma that they later dubbed "4S disease". This spontaneous regression usually occurs in infants younger than 6 months old. Evans was introduced to The Philadelphia Eagles General Manager, when the team had raised $100,000 for children with cancer in honor of one of the player's daughters who had leukemia. Evans accepted the money from Eagles owner, Jimmy Murray, and let him know that she needed $32,000 more in order to buy a house for the children and their families. As the programs have grown they have adapted Evans' total care approach and created a place for family centered care. It's now considered a home away from home, free of charge. There are now more than 600 houses in more than 60 countries. Evans died in Philadelphia on 29 September 2022, aged 97.

Legacy Evans' biography is depicted in the film Audrey's Children, directed by Ami Canaan Mann and released on 28 March 2025. She is portrayed by Natalie Dormer. A children's book titled Audrey Evans: Not Your Ordinary Doctor was published about her in 2019.

Awards and honors In 1976, she received The Janeway Award from the American Radium Society. In 1995, she received the Distinguished Career Award from the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. In 1997, she received the William Osler Patient Oriented Research Award from the University of Pennsylvania. In 2000, she received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Advances in Neuroblastoma Research Association. In 2008, she was selected as the honorary member of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology In 2018, she received an honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Holy Family University

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