Revolutionizing Pediatric Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment through Molecular Profiling

Cancer is the #1 cause of death by disease in children.   Over the last few decades, the survival rates for children with cancer have improved.  These gains have been made by brilliant dedicated clinicians and researchers, mostly by bringing caregivers and patients together across the country and around the world using traditional clinical trials to optimize interventions like surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.  These treatments are harsh – children go through significant suffering and morbidity during their treatments and often have late effects from these therapies. Molecular tumor profiling is new tool available to us to improve and save the lives of children with cancer. The benefits of molecular profiling and personalized medicine have been demonstrated in adult cancer care, and recently our work has shown that children with cancer also benefit. In children with solid tumors, clinically relevant molecular alterations were identified in most (86%) of patients. Molecular alterations have a substantial impact in making the correct diagnosis, and in matching patients to targeted therapies. Please join us in working towards a future where each child with cancer gets the right test at the right time, gets the right diagnosis and gets the best treatment.