A brighter future for kids with cancer

Research and innovation

With the significant advancements that have been made in oncology care over the last 25 years, researchers have more knowledge and technology available to them to develop highly personalized treatments for patients battling cancer. Dr. Rebecca Deyell, Pediatric Oncologist and Hematologist and Investigator at BC Children’s Hospital and Research Institute, and her team launched 16 early phase clinical trials in the past year, offering new therapy options for children with relapsed leukemia, hard-to-treat solid tumours and brain tumours.

Significant multi-year research studies have also continued to advance this past year due to donor support. Progress continues to be made on the Canada-wide Precision Oncology for Young People (PROFYLE) initiative, finding new, targeted treatments by profiling the tumours of kids who don’t respond to standard therapies. There are currently 60 kids in BC who have been enrolled in PROFYLE to date.

The Better Response through Avatomic Evidence (BRAvE) initiative is making outstanding progress. Before a promising new treatment can be given to a child to fight their cancer, years or even decades of research must be done to ensure it is both safe and effective. The BRAvE team has built a leading precision preclinical test platform, which aims to uncover new precision therapies and help researchers understand the biology of childhood cancers in order to prevent relapse and prepare a treatment plan that has been tested in the lab, before relapse occurs.

Finally, immunotherapies like CAR T-cell therapy have shown significant promise with certain relapsed leukemia, lymphoma and other blood cancers. CAR T-cell therapy uses a patient’s own immune system to target and eliminate certain hard-to-treat cancers. During therapy, a patient’s T-cells are modified to recognize and kill leukemia cells. To date, six patients at BC Children’s Hospital have been treated with CAR T-cell therapy.