Western Canadian Leaders in Fighting Childhood Cancer

Willa and her superhero brother, James

With generous community support, the Alberta Children’s Hospital has built tremendous expertise in the fight against childhood cancer, especially in two key areas: Blood and Marrow Transplantation and Clinical Trials.

Our hospital is the provincial referral site and home to the largest Blood and Marrow Transplant centre in western Canada. Our hospital is recognized nationally for its high success rates in BMT survival and low rates of graft-vs-host disease, a potentially debilitating or fatal complication of BMT. It is also a national leader in the use of less invasive peripheral blood as the source of stem cells for marrow regeneration. For some children with illnesses such as high-risk or recurrent leukemia, brain tumors, recurrent Hodgkin disease and some solid tumors, BMT offers the best chance for survival.  It provides these children with the chance for a fresh start in rebuilding their blood and immune systems.

Our hospital is the only children’s hospital in western Canada – and only one of three in Canada - with the expertise to conduct Phase I clinical trials: leading-edge research that involves testing promising drugs on patients for whom all other treatments have failed. Extremely sophisticated, these clinical trials add to our understanding of cancers and how to improve treatment of them.  They offer hope to children and families and lead to discoveries that benefit children and adults with cancer and other diseases as well.

The Alberta Children’s Hospital is also the only Canadian member of the elite Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Investigators Consortium (POETIC). Johns Hopkins, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and MD Anderson, among the most highly regarded cancer hospitals in the United States, are other members of this prestigious group of research institutions, placing our hospital in world-leading company.