To fight against brain cancer in children, the Infantile the Niño Jesús University Hospital signed a collaboration agreement with the CRIS Foundation against cancer on Wednesday to carry out a research on an alternative technique for the effective treatment of malignant brain tumors in children and young people.

Marta Cardona, director of the Foundation said in the event that they are dedicated to the research as if their own life depended on it, and that to fight the support of everyone is needed.  “Society knows, understands and wants to participate, as in the case of Noel’s parents, family and friends –a 13-year-old boy who has been fighting a medulloblastoma for five years, a tumor that begins in the part of the brain called the cerebellum and is the most common type of brain cancer in children. They have been those who have promoted many activities for months in Galicia and those who have raised funds to launch this important project.”

The money collected by CRIS will allow the team of researchers to study for three years a technique that consists of introducing cells that function as a factory of anti-cancer viruses that destroy only the tumor of the patients.

In the investigation, six patients with brain tumor will participate. “In the event that we observe favorable responses at this initial stage, then we would expand the research to a greater number of people to confirm the results,” said Álvaro Lassaletta, coordinator of the brain tumor unit at the Niño Jesús Hospital in Madrid.

The first cause of death from childhood cancer is brain tumors. “They are the second most frequent in children, after leukemia. Specifically, in Spain, approximately 300 brain tumors are diagnosed per year. The lack of means, resources and, above all, public funding, put us behind other European countries such as France, Germany or the United Kingdom. Therefore, the survival here of these tumors is lower,” said Dr. Lassaletta.

The implementation of this research on treatment of childhood cancer is essential, because “we have to look for new treatments different from those already known. Ideally, all children and adolescents in Spain who had a relapse due to a brain tumor could be included in a clinical study, since it is the only way forward and improve the chances of healing patients,” Lassaletta concluded .

 

Source: El País