Thanks to all our donors Alexander Druy from National Research and Clinical Center for Pediatric Hematology participated at the 4th Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Basic and Translational Research Conference held in New York, NY. Here is Alexander's letter with the explanation why such participation is important for the future of childhood cancer treatment in Russia.
By this letter I’d like to express my gratitude to the “Podari. Life” donors for the support of my participation in the 4th Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Basic and Translational Research Conference held in New York, NY. This conference was conducted by the Society for NeuroOncology of the USA and Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation.
The spectrum of the discussing topics was wide and included all aspects of the brain tumors in children: biology and molecular genetics of embryonic and glial tumors, comprehensive diagnostic and disease monitoring procedures as well as innovative therapeutic approaches. Embryonic brain tumors, such as medulloblastoma and atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor, enterprise the major research interest for us because two studies (clinical and translational) are now performing in our center. Findings in biological basis of these tumors reported in the presentations as well as fruitful discussions with foreign colleagues, led to new ideas how current research and diagnostic procedures could be improved by the introduction of revealed molecular markers.
We sure that increasing of diagnostic accuracy will result in the benefit for patient’s survival because of precise risk-adapted treatment conduction, reducing therapeutic intensity for prevention of late adverse events in low risk patients and intensification of the multimodal treatment for high-risk patients.
Problems and perspectives of precise and targeted therapy were raised in the Translational Therapeutics session. Several new substances were presented to be active against different kinds of brain tumors in preclinical studies.
These drugs could be salvage for those patients who do not respond to the standard chemotherapy or who do not have reserve for the treatment intensification.
High grade gliomas, the most aggressive brain tumors, are still a challenge for oncologists and researchers all over the world. There are not curative treatment options for this deadly disease. But past few years resulted in significant benefit in the understanding of biological basis of these tumors. We are looking forward to start performing comprehensive genetic testing for these patients in our Center. And all professional society hopes that the achievements in molecular biology will transform into finding of the key for successful treatment of such patients.
After the Conference the collaborative meeting of the Children’s Brain Tumor Tissue Consortium was conducted by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. During this meeting perspectives of collaboration between our Center and Consortium were discussed. The Consortium was represent by the leaders in clinical and translational research of brain tumors in US Adam Resnick (Philadelphia, PA) and Javad Nazarian (Washington, DC). After the fruitful discussion the directions of mutual research progress were outlined.
In conclusion it is necessary to state that participation in the Conference and subsequent research meeting was extremely useful and new ideas are now incarnating to the life in our Center.
We sure that this progress will result in significant benefit for children very soon and we see such examples right now.
The attendance of the conference was impossible without valuable support of “Podari. Life”. I sincerely appreciate all the donors of the "Podari.Life" public charity.
Alexander Druy, MD, PhD
National Research and Clinical Center for Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Immunology
Lab of cytogenetics and molecular genetics