Any other cancer where more than three-quarters of patients are cured might seem to be a low research priority — compared to, say, cancers with an approximately 0 percent cure rate, such as adult glioblastoma. But childhood cancers are, well, childhood cancers.
“Today’s overall cure rate of 80 percent means than 1 in 5 children will die of their disease,” said Dr. James Downing, president and CEO of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. “So there is still a lot of work to be done.”
The pediatric cancer community applauded President Trump’s State of the Union promise of an additional $500 million over the next 10 years to fund research into cures for more childhood cancers. It wasn’t just because scientists generally don’t turn down extra money, and it wasn’t because of the emotional tug of dying children. Instead, experts say there are specific, actionable research questions that the additional funding could help them answer, including in two areas that the “cancer moonshot,” developed by the Obama administration, identified.
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Will any funding go towards research for DIPG? Or Diffuse Midline Glioma? Children with these types of cancers
have 0 percent survival rate. Neil Armstrong’s infant daughter died from this over 50 years ago….We need to give these precious children a chance. Our 11 year old grandson died in August from this horrible disease. No one wants to watch a child suffer through this..it changes you forever. Please bring this to the forefront and make people more aware. Thank you.
Combined Gene Therapy of Cancer Directed at Tumor Stem Cells and Patients Hematopoietic Stem Cells. The essence of my proposal is to use two known tumor suppressor genes expressed from episomal vectors: one delivered to cancer stem cells to suppress tumor growth, the other delivered to patients hematopoietic stem cells to boost the immune system to attack and destroy the tumor.
I spent most of my life to find how to prevent and cure cancer. I now believe that curing adult cancer may lead to a demographic catastrophe. Working at NCI I discovered CGTC (combined gene therapy of cancer); the leadership reject it, I then send it to President BH Obama and his office published it on the web. (Please, see attachments). Being concerned with children dying of cancer I discovered that eye drops (!!) containing dorzolamide (COSOPT formulation by Merck, Co) prevent/cure cancer in mice.
Again the NCI prevented a study to find out whether glaucoma patients using COSOPT to control IOP develop cancer.
A full investigation into Causation for Cancer in both children and adults would be a good start. We already know the Herpes Group of viruses are causative for a number of cancers. Of that group, Epstein-Barr stands out above the rest so far. We have a vaccine for HPV, now it’s time for a vaccine to protect the population from this cancer virus. It took 40 years for production of the HPV vaccine (how many had already died?). IT IS TIME.
This article left me with an unsettled feeling that childhood cancers will not benefit from the President’s directive. As the grandmother of a four year old with leukemia that is most depressing.
New funds for childhood cancer could create a public private partnership to fix the intractable problem of developing new agents for very small populations of kids with uniquely pediatric tumors.