Finding New Cures for Cancer

Finding New Cures for Cancer

Despite the remarkable rise in cure rates for childhood cancer over the last 50 years, 20% of children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer will die of their disease. To ensure that those children who are currently not expected to survive due to cancer have a chance at cure, and to continue to strive for the highest quality of life for survivors, our patients and families need access to the newest and best treatment options here in Calgary.

With support from the community, the Pediatric Clinical Trials program is positioned to make those treatments possible. Clinical trials and novel therapies are the stepping stones for making progress in improving outcomes for these critically-ill pediatric patients. With a goal to double the number of clinical trials available at the hospital, the team envisions a future in which every child coming through the doors of the Alberta Children’s Hospital with hard-to-treat cancers and blood disorders who is eligible for enrolment on a clinical trial or treatment with a novel therapy is able to do so – offering them hope for a better future and offering the care team the opportunity to learn more from every treatment they provide.

Patients who will most benefit are those battling:

• rare cancers for which there is no standard treatment
• relapsed cancers or cancers that have spread
• cancers with a poor prognosis right from diagnosis

“Patients and families want – and deserve – a world class clinical and research program, one that advances our understanding of why cancer develops and how it can be better targeted more effectively. With support from the community we can develop and offer advanced clinical trials, giving our patients access to novel and innovative treatment and a chance at a cure here in Alberta.”
– Dr. Greg Guilcher, Pediatric Oncologist and Program Lead for the Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders Program, Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Institute.

Once the team is assembled, your support will fuel homegrown innovative therapies for hard-to-treat and life-threatening cancers – giving hope to parents facing the unthinkable with their child or adolescent. Those much-needed new discoveries will benefit patients in our community, across the country and around the world.

The Alberta Children’s Hospital Foundation is proud to represent the pediatric interests in the OWN.Cancer campaign – a collaboration between the Alberta Cancer Foundation, University of Calgary and Alberta Health Services.