Cancer Research Journal » Childhood Cancers

Castle Encourages Kids to Complete Cancer Treatments

Lisa — Tue, 27 May 2008 23:17:23 +0000

The University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center (UMGCC) has come up with a fun way to encourage children to complete radiation treatments for cancer.

UMGCC’s Magic Castle program, which is funded by the Children’s Cancer Foundation, grants wishes to pediatric oncology patients who complete radiation therapies for childhood cancers. Prior to beginning treatment, each child places three written wishes inside the colorful Magic Castle and they’re told the castle’s princess will grant one of them after all the sessions are finished. Once the last radiation treatment is done, staff members and family members gather for a small party where the gift is presented to the child. Gifts typically include popular items like Game Boys, iPods and DVD players.

Dr William Regine was inspired to create the Magic Castle after seeing the positive impact of other wish granting programs being used at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. As he said,

“It makes a difference. Some of these patients may not have gotten through their treatment otherwise, due to the high anxiety level associated with this type of treatment.”

Dr William Regine
Director of Radiation Oncology, UMGCC

If you’d like to learn more about the Magic Castle Program, you can contact UMGCC at 1-800-888-8823.

Source: Greenebaume Cancer Center Radiation Oncology Program

Technorati Tags: leukemia; bone cancer; retinoblastoma; rhabdomyosarcoma; lymphoma; Baltimore

MPD Blood Cancer Treatment Begins Human Trials

Lisa — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 20:27:30 +0000

Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have begun Phase I clinical trials of a new drug designed to treat myeloproliferative diseases (MPD) that sometimes develop into acute myelogenous leukemia (AML).

Scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have already used the new drug, an orally-administered compound known as TG101348, to successfully treat chronic blood cancers in mice. Brigham and Women’s animal study showed the investigational drug dramatically increased survival rates without causing toxicity.

The TG101348 drug (designed by biopharmaceutical company TargeGen, Inc) works by targeting JAK2, a protein that promotes blood cell growth.

Mutations in JAK2 can produce runaway red and white blood cell growth leading to bone marrow damage, blood clots, painful spleen enlargement, excessive bleeding and infections. While some patients live for years with MPD, others develop AML — a potentially fatal form of blood cancer.

MPD affects approximately 80,000 patients in the US and limited treatment options currently exist. But TG101348’s promising results in mice have the scientists enthusiastic about testing it’s effectiveness in human trials. As one Dana-Farber researcher said,

“A betting person would be excited about this.”

Richard Stone, MD
Oncologist, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

If you’d like to learn more about the TG101348 study, a report has been published in the April 7, 2008, edition of the journal Cancer Cell.

Source: Brigham and Women’s Hospital News

Technorati Tags: polycythemia vera; National Institutes of Health; Howard Hughes Medical Institute; MPD Foundation; Leukemia and Lymphoma Society; Mayo Clinic; hematologic malignancies

Summer Getaways: Cancer Camp

Lisa — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:44:40 +0000

Still wondering how you’ll spend your summer vacation? Consider a kid’s cancer camp.

Oncology camps offer pediatric cancer patients and their families a great opportunity to have some fun away from the dreary routine of hospital visits. Plus, kids and their parents get to spend some recreational time with others who truly understand what it’s like to live with the disease.

Medical professionals are on hand to help cancer campers with any health issues that may arise during the outdoor festivities and older cancer survivors often return to give hope and encouragement to those just beginning their cancer journey.

The camps are also perfect destination spots for health care professionals, researchers, students, teachers, and volunteers in search of humanitarian vacations—they’re located all around the US and Canada, as well as overseas, so opportunities abound. What a wonderful way for scientists to recharge after a long winter in the lab!

If you’d like to find out more about cancer/oncology camps here and abroad, check out:

Children’s Oncology Camping Association International

American Cancer Society Summer Camps

Ped-Onc Resource Center

Source: CancerResearchJournal.com

Kids with Kidney Cancer Get Good News from St Jude

Lisa — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 22:19:38 +0000

A study conducted at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital has shown that some kids with kidney cancers classified “inoperable” may actually be able to keep normal kidney function with the help of a surgical procedure called nephron-sparing surgery.

Between 1999 and 2006, St Jude conducted nephron-sparing surgery, otherwise known as partial nephrectomy, on 10 kidney cancer patients under age 10 with bilateral Wilms tumors. Although the tumors appeared inoperable on the preoperative imaging scans, surgeons found they were able to remove the malignant tumors while sparing enough healthy tissue to preserve the child’s renal function.

Children with bilateral Wilms tumors often have one or both kidneys removed in an attempt to eliminate the cancer. If both kidneys are removed, the child requires dialysis and a possible kidney transplant.

Approximately 500 children are diagnosed with Wilms tumors each year in the US and approximately 5 percent of them will have tumors in both kidneys.

All the patients included in the St Jude study successfully treated with nephron-sparing surgery had favorable cell characteristics (histology) as well as chemotherapy and radiation treatments – and all of them are still alive. Nine of them still exhibited normal renal function at their most recent exams. As the study’s senior author stated,

“Many times, physicians will look at a child’s scans and assume that it is impossible to remove the tumor while preserving some uninvolved kidney, but our study indicates that surgeons should not rely solely on the imaging to make that decision.”

Andrew M. Davidoff, MD
Division Chief, General Pediatric Surgery
St Jude Children’s Research Hospital

Authors from the University of Tennessee, Memphis, the University of Washington and the Children’s National Medical Center also participated in the study. If you’d like to learn more about their research, it has been published online in the March 24, 2008, edition of the journal Cancer.

Source: St Jude Children’s Research Hospital News

Related Links: NCI; stanfordstjude.com; ScienceDaily; medpagetoday.com; CNN

Technorati Tags: renal cell carcinoma; surgical oncology; rare diseases; ALSAC; nephroblastoma; cancer treatment

STAT3 Inhibitors Can Help or Harm Glioblastoma Patients

Lisa — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:46:07 +0000

A study led by the Harvard School of Medicine provides evidence that targeted chemotherapies commonly used to treat glioblastoma may do more harm than good for some patients.

Glioblastoma is a rare form of brain cancer with a poor survival rate. STAT3 inhibitors are one of the few therapies available to treat the disease, but Harvard’s study indicates the patient’s genetic profile determines whether STAT3 genes act as oncogenes that promote tumor development or suppressors that work to stop cancer.

To arrive at their findings, researchers from Harvard and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute studied astrocytes in mice. Their investigation revealed mutations in two other genes, EGFR and PTEN, affected the function of STAT3 thereby determining whether it kept cancerous cells in check or helped their formation. Specifically, when EGFR mutated and interacted with STAT3, it turned STAT3 into an oncogene, but when PTEN mutated it transformed STAT3 into a tumor suppressor. The scientists later confirmed their surprising results in human glioblastoma tumors.

The discovery has important implications for glioblastoma patients because STAT3 has long been believed to cause the cancer. As the study’s senior author explained,

“This discovery lays the foundation for a more tailored therapeutic intervention. And that’s really important. You can’t just go blindly treating people by inhibiting STAT3.”

Azad Bonni, MD, PhD
Associate Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

The team’s findings could impact studies on more common cancers as well — STAT3 has also been implicated in some breast and prostate cancers.

If you’d like to learn more, results of the study are published in the February 7, 2008, online edition of Genes and Development.

Source: Harvard Medicine News Alert

Technorati Tags: glioma; neuro-oncology; neurology; Stewart Trust of Washington, DC; Armenise-Harvard Foundation; Carolyn and Peter Lynch Research Fund; Boston, MA

Minnesota Kids Get Laughing Gas Before Cancer Treatments

Lisa — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 13:54:48 +0000

Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota has won the Innovation of the Year in Patient Care Award from the Minnesota Hospital Association for making chemotherapy, CT scans and other medical procedures less frightening for children.

Children’s Hospitals and Clinics have been using nitrous oxide, a mild sedative commonly referred to as laughing gas, to relax young cancer patients before they get an IV, a spinal tap, or a catheter.

Until recently, most nitrous oxide was administered to US patients by dentists or by paramedics treating traumatic injuries in the field, but that may soon change. In Children’s Hospitals case, the practice has been so successful their doctors now offer nitrous oxide during 20 different procedures including relatively routine treatments like removing stitches.

Unlike deeper sedatives, patients administered nitrous oxide are awake so they can move and respond to the health professionals treating them, plus their muscles are relaxed so they frequently experience less pain. In addition, the effects of laughing gas wear off quicker (usually in 5 to 10 minutes) so the kids and their caregivers can resume other activities sooner.

One mother whose 11 year old son is battling leukemia said the nitrous technique has been a comfort to both of them and Children’s medical staff finds the program is making the cancer treatment process easier for professionals and patients alike. As one said,

“I wish we could have found it many, many years ago. I often wonder why we didn’t think of it.”

Mary Kay Farrell, RN
Radiology Nurse

If you’d like to learn more about other methods cancer patients use to relax, you can click here to visit the Mayo Clinic cancer treatment web site.

Source: WCCO.com (CBS)

Kids Willing to Take Risks for Cancer Research

Lisa — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:45:14 +0000

A study of children involved in cancer treatments and other trials indicates most of them are willing to put themselves in harm’s way to further research projects and charitable causes, even if the activities wouldn’t benefit them personally.

To arrive at the findings, scientists from the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development interviewed 81 sets of children (ages 7 to 14 years) and their parents/guardians at a clinic where the children were receiving care or participating in clinical research for cancer or asthma.

After being presented hypothetical scenarios of various research studies and charitable activities that would pose an increased risk of headaches or broken bones, the patients were asked if they’d be willing to participate. Although they were told the study could not benefit their own treatment, a large percentage of the children – up to 71% in some instances – said they would still volunteer.

Depending on the risks presented, 24 to 72 percent of the guardians stated they’d provide parental consent even when the proposed activities offered no clinical benefit to their own child.

The authors of the study concluded the findings supported the acceptability of exposing children to some research risks for the benefit of others.

Results of the study are published in the January 2008 edition of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

On a related note, there’s a bipartisan bill currently making its way through the US Congress which could potentially impact funding for pediatric cancer research. If you’d like to track the status of the Conquer Childhood Cancer Act of 2007 click here.

Source: Jan 2008 Issue of The Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine

Stanford Locates Human Progenitor Cell Linked to Leukemia

Lisa — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 13:06:49 +0000

Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have isolated a human blood cell involved in the creation of all blood cells found in the body.

This cell, called the multipotent progenitor, is the offspring of stem cells found in bone marrow. Later generations of progenitor cells become the red blood cells, platelets, and immune cells which comprise human blood.

Earlier studies involving mice indicate mutations in progenitor cells may trigger a blood cancer known as acute myelogenous leukemia, or AML. Isolating the progenitor cell in humans will enable scientists to further investigate its role in AML and other blood diseases.

The findings may also benefit future bone marrow transplant patients because progenitor cells can be used to produce all the body’s different blood cells in a lab dish.

If you’d like to learn more, results of the research have been published in Cell Stem Cell.

Source: Stanford Medical Center Report

Tags: Irving Weissman, MD; Ravindra Majeti, MD, PhD; Christopher Park, MD, PhD; Walter V. and Idun Y. Berry Foundation; NIH-funded; Palo Alto, CA; hematology; Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine; hematologic oncology

Defense Contract Could Benefit Leukemia Patients

Lisa — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 13:55:48 +0000

A multi-million dollar government contract awarded to develop a treatment for military personnel attacked with radioactive weapons could also benefit leukemia patients whose bodies reject bone marrow transplants.

Osiris Therapeutics, Inc (NASDAQ: OSIR) will receive up to $224.7M from the US Department of Defense to speed development of Prochymal™, an intravenous drug designed to treat people accidentally or maliciously exposed to radiation. A portion of the funds will go to the Genzyme Corporation (NASDAQ: GENZ) which is helping Osiris develop the drug.

Aside from its potential military applications, Prochymal™ is in late-stage human trials investigating its effectiveness as treatment for a potentially fatal inflammatory condition called graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) which commonly afflicts blood cancer patients after bone marrow transplants.

The drug is manufactured from mesenchymal stem cells extracted from healthy adult bone marrow. These extracted cells replace damaged cells in the patient helping restore their body’s repair functions.

Executives at the biotechnology company believe the Pentagon contract will facilitate the company’s efforts to develop the product for the treatment of a variety of diseases. As one company official explained,

“If you can clear the hurdles to get into the market, you make it easier for the rest of the therapies to reach patients.”

C. Randal Mills, PhD
Chief Executive Officer, Osiris Therapeutics

Osiris plans to seek US Food and Drug Administration approval for Prochymal™ as a GvHD treatment by the end of the 2008 and a radiation exposure treatment in 2009. The company is also evaluating the drug as a potential therapy for Type I diabetes and Crohn’s disease.

If you’re interested in learning more about clinical trials open to leukemia patients in the United States, you can find out more at ClinicalTrials.gov.

Source: washingtonpost.com

Tags: hematologic oncology; pharmaceutical companies; bioterrorism

Chloroquine Blocks Burkitt Lymphoma

Lisa — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 13:59:52 +0000

A study conducted by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute and St Jude Children’s Research Hospital shows chloroquine, a common prescription drug used to treat malaria, prevents certain types of cancers from developing.

The Scripps and St Jude’s researchers used mouse models to test chloroquine’s impact on tumors. Their investigation revealed the drug blocked Burkitt lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, and ataxia telangiectasia, an immunodeficiency disease that predisposes humans to leukemia, lymphoma and other cancers.

More research is required, but the scientists are hopeful this discovery will lead to the development of new drugs to prevent cancer. As one explained,

“The fact that the drug attacks premalignant cells, and cells that overexpress transcription factor MYC, a notorious contributor to tumorigenesis that is implicated in more than 70 percent of all cancers, make the use of this drug very attractive for chemoprevention and cancer treatment.”

John Cleveland
Dept of Cancer Biology, The Scripps Research Institute
Jupiter, Florida

The study has been published in the online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation and is scheduled to appear in January 2008 print edition of JCI.

Source: US News & World Report

Related Links: Science Daily; ASscribe.org; azonano.com; unisi.it

Related Spanish Link: Ataxia-Telangiectasia from the University of Maryland Medical Center

Tags: A-T; chemotherapy; cancer drugs; oncology; amebicide; blood cancers; chromosome 8; Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL); Epstein-Barr Virus; Memphis, TN