New drug gives kids with terminal brain cancer hope
IN an Australian first, children suffering from brain cancer will be given access to a “wonder drug” which has already had dramatic results overseas. It will prove a lifeline for youngsters such as Kayne Cook, if his cancer returns.
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AFTER a nightmare that has lasted more than five years, Kayne Cook and his family finally have some real hope.
And it’s all thanks to a new wonder drug.
Kayne was diagnosed at 22 months of age with a form of brain cancer called Atypical Teratoid Rhabdoid Tumour (ATRT).
After radical surgery to remove the tumour and 18 months of chemotherapy and radiation treatment, the seven-year-old is in remission.
Normally, however, his family would still be living with the fear it could return — because a second bout is almost always fatal.
But a new immunotherapy drug called Nivolumab is giving families like the Cooks a safety net after an international trial showed remarkable results.
“A relapse with ATRT is terminal, but with this trial it gives us so much hope, we’ll keep our fingers crossed we never have to use it, we have lost so many children to brain cancer,” mum Dani Cook said.
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Nivolumab is an immunotherapy drug that uses the body’s own immune system to target specific mutations in deadly brain tumours which, until now, have been inevitably fatal.
In an Australian first, the Children’s Cancer Institute and Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick will partner with The Hospital for Sick Children in Canada, to trial the drug’s effectiveness on children with tumours with an extremely high number of mutations.
Paediatric oncologist Associate Professor David Ziegler said the trial is part of the Zero Childhood Cancer initiative that analyses the genetic profile of each child’s tumour to match them with the most effective drugs.
“We have treated several patients with ‘hypermutated’ tumours and seen dramatic effects,” Prof Ziegler told The Sunday Telegraph.
“In Toronto, two children who have hypermutated glioblastoma had an incredible response from being on their death bed to going to school with scans showing complete resolution.”
Cancers grow because they manage to hide from the immune system, but Nivolumab unmasks the tumours to allow the immune system to detect and destroy cancer cells.
“One of the things we need for this treatment to work well is mutations and the more mutations you have, the more abnormal the cell looks to the immune system, the more likely it is effective in eliminating,” Prof Ziegler said.
About 10 per cent of the most aggressive childhood tumours have hypermutations and it is hoped Nivolumab will be an actual cure for these.
Funding from The Medical Research Future Fund’s Brain Cancer Mission, together with $86,000 from the Cure Brain Cancer Foundation will be used to enable 15 children to join the pilot trial starting next year.
“These tumours are very aggressive and considered incurable and there are no effective therapies but there have been studies overseas where they have given this drug to kids with these hypermutated tumours and seen really dramatic results, almost complete elimination of the tumours, which is almost unprecedented,” Prof Ziegler said.
Cure Brain Cancer Foundation CEO Michelle Stewart praised the levels of collaboration shown by this international project.
“International collaboration greatly increases understanding of rare and deadly types of brain cancer, and it is through collaborations like this we will find better treatment options for all Australians diagnosed with this brutal disease in the future,” Ms Stewart said.
The trial will open next year in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide, in partnership with the Australian and New Zealand Children’s Haematology and Oncology Group.