Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation for Childhood Cancer

Lia Gore

Project Overview

The majority of children diagnosed with cancer today will be cured.  Unfortunately some, including those with refractory solid tumors and some brain tumors, continue to have a particularly dismal prognosis that has not changed for over 30 years.  The surge in research on childhood cancer has frequently excluded patients with brain tumors due to their complex physical and emotional challenges.   Ironically, these are the children who need new treatments most desperately.  We conduct phase I and II trials of a variety of novel cancer therapies that have shown promise in early work.  The Experimental Therapeutics Program at Children's Hospital in Denver was created to enhance the access of the most promising new therapies to children with refractory malignancies through early phase clinical trials, and builds on the resources of our University's NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center.  One of our guiding principles has been to include patients with brain tumors in early phase clinical trials, and to promote the more rapid and efficient translation of insights gained in the lab directly to patient care.  The program has grown from having no available phase I trials in 2002, to offering a variety of the most promising new therapies to families across the country.  We have drawn patients from 21 states and 5 foreign countries for consultation and treatment. This proposal seeks to continue the funding that support from Alex's Lemonade Stand has granted us in the past, with a particular emphasis on expanding the treatments and care available to children with brain tumors.