St. Jude Hospital Announces Study that Holds Promise for Children with Neuroblastoma

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has announced results of research they have done in conjunction with Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy, the Assisi Foundation of Memphis, the U.S. Public Health Service Childhood Solid Tumor Program, a Cancer Center Support Grant from the National Cancer Institute and ALSAC that leads to hope in improved treatments for neuroblastoma, a pediatric solid tumor that arises from cells in the peripheral nervous system.

About 1 in 6000 children will be diagnosed with neuroblastoma by the age of five, 1 in 100,000 per year in US, The average age at diagnosis is two.

No child is ever turned away at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital because they have no health insurance and no way to pay and they are recognized world wide as a leader in research into childhood illnesses.

They describe their treatment as a one- two punch where the second punch takes the best advantage of the first one. In other words, timing is everything.

Punch number one is using a drug called bevacizumab that blocks a protein called VEGF. It is the type of protein that will stimulate blood vessel growth in tumors. If you block the blood from getting to the tumors. They do not grow. Not only that, it eliminates the weak and faulty vessels, while leaving only the healthy blood vessels needed for punch two.

Now comes punch number two. While the VEGF has the blood vessel growth block, hit the tumor with the chemotherapy drug topotecan which depends on blood vessels to get the drug to the tumor. Get the second drug in before the first one wears off and when the blood vessels are all healthy and grow again and can bring in drug number two to finish it off.

This research shows great promise in being a way to treat other types of tumors also.

"A growing tumor releases VEGF to stimulate growth of the blood vessels that support its own growth," Davidoff said. "But much of this new vasculature is poorly constructed and leaks fluid into the spaces around the cancerous cells, increasing the pressure inside the tumor. This increased pressure outside the vasculature acts like a wall to prevent cancer drugs from passing through the blood vessels."