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Assorted News from the Last Week: Leo Messi, Alejandra & Richard Gere, Princess Dina supporting OncoThon for childhood cancer research joined the best and the brightest scientists, advocates, and allies to support Oncothon 2025. The immunotherapy drug blinatumomab (Blincyto) is already a standard treatment for some people with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). Following positive results from a large clinical trial, it’s now expected to become part of the standard initial treatment for many children with the disease. Factors driving stark inequalities for survival rates for children with cancer in low and middle-income countries and how to narrow that survival gap. [...] Read more

Assorted News from the Last Week: CAC2 Member Annette Logan-Parker (Cure 4 the Kids Foundation) explains why she joined the CAC2 Innovation Council. A research paper by Dr. Anahita Fathi Kazerooni, Dr. Adam Kraya, and other colleagues, published in the prestigious Nature Communications Journal, sheds new light on the complexities of pediatric low-grade gliomas. People with cancer are living longer than everopens in a new tab or window, but many of them have to deal with long-lasting effects of the disease and treatment. Pediatric tumors are often driven by one or two spontaneous mutations, whereas adult tumors can have hundreds [...] Read more

Assorted News from the Last Week: A recent study indicates that children and young adults with cancer face an elevated risk of dying if they live in previously redlined neighborhoods—residential areas marked in the 1920s–1930s by lenders as undesirable for mortgage loans due to their racial demographics. International convention: Defeating childhood and adolescent cancer and reducing global disparities. Landscape of global pediatric oncology publications: A cross-sectional analysis. New research explains why immunotherapy is less effective in children with cancer. Epigenetic states during development establish cancer risk before birth. Teens with cancer report worse pain, mental health a year after advance [...] Read more

Assorted News from the Last Week: A large number of CAC2 members contributed to the recently published conclusions from the 2024 paediatric strategy forum for medicinal product development in diffuse midline gliomas: to achieve progress: i) drug discovery; ii) new multi-modality, efficient, collaborative, pre-clinical approaches, possibly including artificial intelligence and, iii) efficient clinical trial designs fit for regulatory purposes are required. The FDA approved treosulfan (Grafapex) with fludarabine as a preparative regimen for allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation in patients ages 1 year and older with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS). Researchers have determined how children's immune [...] Read more

Assorted News from the Last Week: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved FoundationOne®CDx as a companion diagnostic for Supporting Organization Member Day One Biopharmaceuticals’ OJEMDA, a type II RAF inhibitor, for the treatment of patients six months of age and older with relapsed or refractory pediatric low-grade glioma (pLGG) harboring a BRAF fusion or rearrangement. Pediatric patients with cancer who have obesity at the time of diagnosis may face an elevated risk of mortality. About 30% of adolescents and young adults with cancer who wanted to die at home did not do so. Cancer burden is shifting from [...] Read more

Assorted News from the Last Week: Pope Francis tells pediatric cancer patients they are ‘witnesses of hope.’ Unraveling the relationship between stress exposure and childhood anxiety: Considering accumulation, impact, and type in the first five years of life. New symptom reporting tool improves quality of life for children with cancer. Draft guidance from the FDA and Office for Human Research Protections offers draft guidance for incorporating tissue biopsies into clinical trials. Bone mineral density deficits prevalent among childhood cancer survivors, but modifiable risk factors suggest there are targets for intervention. Childhood cancer genome study reveals hidden variants. Transplant of frozen [...] Read more