It’s Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and although cancer among children is rare, it has a meaningful effect.
“There is a significant impact not only to the individual patient, but their siblings, their parents, and really their whole community. And I think a lot of people don't appreciate that kids can get cancer as adults do,” said Dr. Alexandra Zorzi, a physician at Children's Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC).
The hope is that through this month, Children’s Hospital can raise awareness about childhood cancers, as well as advocate for funding.
“You raise awareness for the support of that individual, patient, and family, but equally as important of knowing that cancer occurs is that increased awareness allows us to advocate for more research dollars to put towards clinical trials, novel therapies, and supportive care for the kids, but also for health care dollars at the ministry level to ensure that a hospital like Children's can continue to thrive and grow to provide the care that these kids and families require,” Zorzi explained.
The funding is necessary to help further research where new advancements are in the works.
A clinical milestone in a common type of blood cancer, Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), has had a significant impact.
“If you were to look back into the 60s, this would have been a palliative diagnosis where the outcome for children was very, very poor and they would be expected to pass, and today as I speak to you, the overall survival for children that were to walk in my door today with ALL is close to 97 per cent,” Zorzi said.
But many other types of cancer are still underresearched.
“We don't have as many success stories as the leukemia story I just told you. There's still a lot of work and research that needs to be done specifically within our brain tumor population, as well as our solid tumors,” she continued.
Seventy children are diagnosed with cancer at Children's Hospital each year, and the hospital is currently treating 150 kids for cancer.
The hospital is one of five major pediatric oncology centres in the province.
“We go all the way to Sarnia, Windsor, and Chatham, so ensuring that those communities are aware that they can be cared for as close to home as possible is important,” said Zorzi.
The hospital takes care of patients from their initial diagnosis, all the way to aftercare.
