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The Kids Research Institute Australia's Brain Tumour Research team will develop and implement cutting-edge technologies to revolutionise the speed of brain cancer diagnosis for WA children, thanks to more than $200,000 from Telethon.
A groundbreaking study from cancer researchers at The Kids Research Institute Australia has identified a promising new therapeutic strategy for children battling the most common childhood cancer – B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia.
The WA Kids Cancer Centre has secured $1.1 million in funding from the Medical Research Future Fund’s (MRFF) Paediatric Brain Cancer Research Stream 2 to develop more effective and less toxic treatments for rare brain cancers in infants.
Associate Professor Rishi Kotecha, Co-Head of Leukaemia Translational Research at The Kids Research Institute Australia Cancer Centre and Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at Perth Children's Hospital, has been named Cancer Council WA’s 2024 Cancer Researcher of the Year.
The Australian arm of an international clinical trial looking at improved treatments for young babies with leukaemia has been awarded funding from the MRFF.
B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL) is the most common pediatric cancer. Current therapeutic regimens have improved 5-year event-free survival rates to 90%, however clinical outcomes for high-risk subgroups, such as BCR-ABL1+ B-ALL and relapsed ALL, remain poor. In addition, 16% of newly diagnosed children with ALL present with vertebral compression fractures. Moreover, 16% of children with ALL undergoing glucocorticoid therapy also experience a high incidence of vertebral fractures, indicating that bone health may be compromised by both leukemia progression and osteotoxicity of chemotherapy.
T cells engineered to express chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) are a promising modality to treat refractory cancers. CD19 CAR-T therapy has achieved remarkable responses in against B-cell lymphomas, however, challenges persist for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and solid malignancies. B7H3 is an immune regulatory molecule that is highly expressed in various tumor cells. Its abnormal expression in acute AML and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) is closely related to tumor progression.
Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) is a proven curative therapy for children with high-risk myeloid malignancies. Disease relapse, transplant-related mortality and graft versus host disease (GvHD) are the main causes of treatment failure and death post-transplant. The optimum pretransplant conditioning regimen is yet to be defined. There is limited data regarding the use of busulfan, fludarabine and melphalan as a myeloablative conditioning regimen in children receiving HSCT for myeloid malignancies.
Childhood cancer survivors (CCS) are at risk of long-term skeletal muscle deficits following intensive therapies during critical periods of growth. This review aimed to synthesize approaches for assessing muscle quantity, quality, and function in CCS and to quantify deficits relative to healthy peers.
Rishi S. Kotecha MB ChB (Hons) MRCPCH FRACP PhD Co-Head, Leukaemia Translational Research rishi.kotecha@health.wa.gov.au Co-Head, Leukaemia