Advances in children's cancer
Recent successes in children’s cancer research
First gene for child brain tumour identified
In November 2008, scientists at Cambridge University, funded by Cancer Research UK and the Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust, discovered the first genetic link to a common childhood brain tumour.
They found that a rearrangement of DNA causes around two-thirds of all cases of pilocytic astrocytoma – the most common brain tumour in five to 19 year-olds. Sixty-six per cent of the samples looked at in this study had a rearrangement of the DNA sequence on chromosome 7, enough of a majority to be classed as a significant genetic marker for the disease.
This significant discovery could provide leads for creating better treatments and make diagnosis of the disease more accurate.
‘Significant step' in understanding leukaemia drug resistance
Scientists at the Paterson Institute in Manchester, funded by Cancer Research UK and Leukaemia Research, pinpointed an enzyme responsible for breaking down and inactivating a key childhood leukaemia drug. This could help to explain why around 20 per cent of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia (ALL) patients do not respond to therapy.
In the UK all children with ALL are treated with Asnase but around 20 per cent of ALL patients become resistant to the drug or have an allergic reaction.
If these results are confirmed in patients, a test could one day be developed to help doctors predict whether children with ALL will benefit from Asnase before treatment starts and hopefully prevent some patients undergoing unnecessary chemotherapy.
Detailed diagnosis boosts child cancer survival
According to research published in March 2009, more accurate disease classification now means some young children with neuroblastoma will have less intensive treatment with better survival.
Cancer Research UK scientists from the Institute of Cancer Research and the University of Sheffield, along with scientists across Europe, found that screening the tumours of children under the age of one with advanced neuroblastoma for a gene called MYCN could save them from unnecessary chemotherapy.
In around 25 per cent of neuroblastomas, the numbers of MYCN genes are increased and these types of tumours behave much more aggressively. The results of this trial suggest that less intense chemotherapy should be given to babies without the amplified MYCN gene.
Molecular test for cancer relapse in UK children
In March 2009, Cancer Research UK scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research found that a molecular marker used in America to predict whether children with a form of kidney cancer called Wilms’ tumour are more likely to relapse than other children could be useful for UK patients.
In the UK and most of Europe, doctors give children with Wilms' tumour chemotherapy before surgery to make the tumour easier to remove and to reduce long-term side effects from treatment for this disease. In North America, doctors attempt to remove the tumour before chemotherapy. The American test – which reveals the loss of chromosome 16 – predicts which children were more than twice as likely to relapse and to die from Wilms' tumour and this risk was the same for both treatment approaches.
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