Zero Childhood Cancer aims to turn all Australian kids with high-risk cancer into long-term survivors

ALL Australian children with high-risk cancers would be turned into long-term survivors under an ambitious program to analyse unique cancer cells and offer personalised treatment.

An initiative aims to bypass the toxic trial-and-error of therapies by using individualised treatment for the most aggressive cancers. Generic picture: iStock

ALL Australian children with high-risk cancers would be turned into long-term survivors under an ambitious national program to analyse their unique cancer cells and offer personalised treatment.

The $40 million Zero Childhood Cancer initiative aims to bypass the toxic trial-and-error of therapies by using individualised treatment for the most aggressive cancers.

Each year 950 Australian children are diagnosed with cancer. Long-term survival rates are 70-90 per cent for many types, but for some cancers, fewer than 30 per cent survive. Each year 150 young cancer patients die.

Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Murdoch Childrens Research Institute are leading the immunotherapy arm that will develop new treatments, called cell therapies, to reprogram the immune system to recognise cancer cells as foreign.

Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) and neuroblastoma will be the first targets of the research led by Peter Mac’s head of Cancer Immunology Program, Professor Joe Trapani and leader of MCRI’s Cancer Research Group, Associate Professor Paul Ekert.

They will search for tumour antigens, the signature proteins on the surface of cancer cells, but not healthy tissue. The patient’s T-cells are then engineered to recognise and destroy just the cancer.

Prof Trapani said Melbourne already had a track record of success in this emer­ging therapy, with Peter Mac leading a clinical trial in adults with acute myeloid leukaemia.

The first Australian, a 21-year-old woman, is cancer free after a world-first cell therapy trial at the Royal Children’s Hospital, 14 years after she was diagnosed with leukaemia.

“We’ve seen in trials overseas that people with ALL, who have been through every therapy and are within weeks of losing their fight, have been rescued,” Prof Trapani said. “It’s revolutionary.”

This year, 12 children will be in the pilot study led by the Children’s Cancer Institute Sydney and Sydney Children’s Hospital. The genetic and biological make-up of the cancer will be analysed to find the best treatment.

From next year, Victorians will be among 120 children with aggressive cancer or who have relapsed, to join a national two-year clinical trial. In 2020, this personalised treatment will be available nationally.

Peter Mac’s Tour de Cure, a three day ride along the Great Ocean Road in November, will raise money for this research.

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Details: tourdecure.com.au