OPACC is thrilled to announce our new partnership with Credit Valley Hospital (CVH) in Mississauga, that allows us to expand our Parent Liaison program to a second location beyond Toronto! Starting on Thursday, February 1st, and then alternating weekly between Thursdays and Fridays, our Parent Liaison program will host a morning drop-in (10am-1pm) once a week at the POGO Clinic within CVH (please note that this schedule may be subject to change as we determine the best fit for our families). We bring the same friendly faces, free resources and refreshments that you are familiar with at SickKids to the community hospital setting. Coverage at SickKids will continue uninterrupted. Our goal has

The female sex hormone oestrogen can perform an important role in neuroblastoma, a form of cancer mainly affecting young children. Read more: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-01/ki-ocn012918.php

A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the journal Pediatric Blood Cancers lays the scientific groundwork for the use of PD-1 inhibitors with an aggressive form of brain cancer, namely supratentorial pediatric ependymoma. Read more: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-01/uoca-ssp012918.php

Screening a class of recently-developed drug compounds—so-called "CDK inhibitors" capable of blocking CDK7/12/13 proteins—against hundreds of different human cancer cell lines, researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center have found that CDK12 inhibitors pack a particularly lethal punch to Ewing sarcoma, a rare cancer typically affecting children and young adults. Read more: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-01-cancer-bullseye-drug-ewing-sarcoma.html

The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics will approach the battle against cancer armed with a common antioxidant: Vitamin C. Vitamin C is a treatment option used to slow the growth and spread of cancer cells, particularly in childhood cancer patients, and the UIHC plans clinical trials that will implement the antioxidant. Read more: http://daily-iowan.com/2018/01/25/uihc-planning-on-using-vitamin-c-to-fight-cancer/

The presence of a specialized pediatric palliative care (SPPC) team lowered the odds that a child with cancer would be admitted to an intensive care unit at the end of life by five-fold compared with those who did not receive palliative care, according to results from a retrospective study conducted in Canada. Read more: http://www.onclive.com/web-exclusives/specialized-pediatric-palliative-care-teams-reduce-highintensity-care-at-endoflife

The work, much of which focuses on kids, is led by Mary Leonard, MD, professor of pediatrics and of medicine and the center’s founding director. Many chronic childhood diseases, including diabetes, chronic kidney disease, inflammatory bowel disease, congenital heart defects and childhood cancer, take a silent toll on patients’ bones. Leonard and her team want to help patients maximize their bone health in childhood and reduce their risk for osteoporosis later on. Read more: http://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2018/01/high-tech-imaging-could-reveal-bone-damage-in-sick-kids.html

Researchers have identified mechanisms that drive about 10 percent of high-risk neuroblastoma cases and have used a new approach to show how the cancer genome "hijacks" DNA that regulates other genes. The resulting insights may help scientists develop more effective therapies, including precision medicines. Read more: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-01-hijacker-cancer-patients-high-risk-neuroblastoma.html

We’re sending children to the United States for experimental CAR-T treatment, but it will be coming to Toronto soon. Read more: https://www.thestar.com/life/2018/01/14/more-hope-for-kids-with-even-the-toughest-leukemia-cases.html

As a toddler, he was diagnosed with a Wilms tumor, which resulted in the removal of a kidney and the rerouting of several arteries. The alterations to Bolster’s arteries compromised his circulatory system, and once the sores started appearing during junior high school, they became a chronic reality. Read more: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/lifestyles/innovative-vein-treatment-ends-decades-suffering/0CrW1adKSJdXYeSnFYwUCP/

The therapy is a drug called Indoximod that blocks an enzyme called indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase or IDO for short. Its role was first discovered at MCG in 1998 and the principal investigator on the trial, Dr. Ted Johnson, was part of the team at MCG that first wrote about the way tumors manipulate the enzyme to evade the body’s immune system. The drug is already being used to treat 42 children who have brain tumors that resisted other treatments or reoccurred but only recently has the clinical trial opened up a new arm to treat children with Kaiden’s cancer. Read more: http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/2018-01-14/drug-therapy-discovered-mcg-being-used-treat-rare-form-brain-cancer-children

Clinical psychologists at A.I. Dupont/Nemours Hospital for Children are studying how siblings of children with cancer are affected during and after treatment, a subject that researchers say is rarely explored or talked about. Read more: http://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/health/2018/01/09/nemours-researchers-examine-cancers-effect-siblings/999307001/

A new study has found germline variations in a key tumor suppressor gene that may prompt changes in treatment and follow-up care for certain high-risk leukemia patients. Read more: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/01/180104160825.htm

Teens and young adults have different, more aggressive cancers than young children and older adults. With fewer clinical trials focused on this age group, a "knowledge gap" also exists. Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/20/health/teen-young-adult-cancer/index.html

For many patients with cancer, platinum-based chemotherapy agents like cisplatin and the less-common carboplatin can be literal lifesavers. However, a significant number of survivors (estimates range from about half up to nearly two-thirds) experience permanent hearing deficits. Read more: https://tinyurl.com/yawskxb2