Zero Childhood Cancer national program launched

A new, Australia-wide initiative intends to wipe out childhood cancer in a program that will see multiple healthcare facilities collaborating to create personalised medical treatments for children suffering from cancer.

The Zero Childhood Cancer is a world-leading initiative, and will focus on improving survival rates and quality of life for children whose cancer currently has no prospect of cure. Childhood cancer kills more children than any other disease in Australia with three children and adolescents dying each week.

Scientists from 13 leading Australian and international research institutes and doctors from all eight of Australia’s kids’ cancer centres will work together to identify and recommend new treatment options. These will be specifically tailored to suit the individual cancers of children with the highest risk of treatment failure or relapse and give their families hope.

The program recognises that each child’s cancer is unique, so they respond differently to anticancer treatment. Detailed laboratory analysis of tumour samples will help identify the drugs most likely to kill each child’s specific cancer.

The national clinical trial builds on a successful NSW pilot study of nearly 60 children begun in late 2015 for children with the most aggressive cancers whose chance of survival on standard treatments was less than 30%. The pilot study proved the program’s feasibility, successfully putting in place the complex logistics and laboratory testing needed to analyse patient tumours and get meaningful results back to doctors in real time.

The clinical trial expands the program to give hope to families across the country and will enrol more than 400 Australian children over the next three years, bringing the most advanced diagnostic technologies close to home. The clinical trial is open in Sydney with other cities set to open in a staged rollout over coming months.

Professor Michelle Haber AM, executive director of Children’s Cancer Institute Research Lead for Zero Childhood Cancer, said the pilot study showed the urgent need for personalised medicine.

“Originally this pilot study was planned for 12 young patients. However, nearly 60 children have been enrolled in the program due to the high demand by clinicians and parents.

Professor Haber said personalised treatment gives kids with the most aggressive cancers the best chance of surviving their disease because it is based on reliable scientific information, such as individual genetic mutations, unique to that child’s cancer.

“Using the latest molecular profiling techniques and laboratory testing of patient cancer cells with anti-cancer drugs, Zero Childhood Cancer will give the most detailed diagnosis possible in Australia to date for children with the most aggressive cancers. It is one of the most complex and comprehensive personalised medicine programs in the world,” she said.

Of the over 950 Australian children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer each year, 150 are diagnosed with cancer types with less than a 30% survival rate, and a further 60 relapse and then have less than a 30% chance of cure. It’s these children — including those suffering from aggressive brain tumours, sarcomas, infant leukaemias and neuroblastomas — who will benefit from the Zero Childhood Cancer Program. The trial will be open to every Australian child with high-risk childhood cancer regardless of the underlying type/diagnosis.

The Zero Childhood Cancer initiative is being led by the Children’s Cancer Institute and The Kids Cancer Centre at Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick, part of The Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network.

Participating hospitals and research centres include:

NSW

Children’s Cancer Institute (Program research leaders)

Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick (Program clinical leaders)

The Children’s Hospital at Westmead

John Hunter Children’s Hospital

Kids Research Institute, Westmead

Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics, Garvan Institute of Medical Research

The ACRF International Centre for the Proteome of Cancer (ProCan), Children’s Medical Research Institute, Westmead

Qld

Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital

University of Queensland Diamantina Institute

SA

Women’s and Children’s Hospital

South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute

Centre for Cancer Biology

Vic

Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne

Monash Children’s Hospital

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Melbourne

Murdoch Children’s Research Institute

WA

Princess Margaret Hospital (moving to Perth Children’s Hospital)

Telethon Kids Cancer Centre, Telethon Kids Institute

The initiative will also collaborate with research centres in the USA and Europe. Interested parents should contact their child’s paediatric oncologist.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/Gelpi