Henry Rappaport, 90; Doctor, City of Hope Cancer Researcher

Dr. Henry Rappaport, 90, a respected cancer researcher and hematopathologist at City of Hope National Medical Center, died of natural causes May 19 in Los Angeles.

The physician was best known for his “Rappaport Classification,” the first clinically significant lymphoma classification system, which he established almost half a century ago. His publications in 1956 and 1966 formed the foundation of the currently used World Health Organization classification of lymphoma.

A native of Austria, Rappaport earned his doctorate in medicine from the University of Vienna.

Fleeing Nazis, he lived briefly in France, then immigrated to the U.S., where he completed a residency in pathology at Chicago’s Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Rappaport served at the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, earning the rank of Army major and completing a major publication on tumors of blood-forming organs.

He taught pathology and oncology and directed surgical pathology at the University of Chicago Medical School before coming to Duarte as the City of Hope’s chairman of pathology.

Rappaport published more than 200 scholarly papers on his cancer research.