3/18/2008

A reason to get up every day

Below, a link to an article in today's New York Times about a little girl being treated at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. She had a brain tumor and was considered terminal. Her father enrolled her in an experimental study. “It won’t save her, but it may help other people,” but then he added, “Maybe it will save her.”

The approach is called metronomic, low-dose or antiangiogenic chemotherapy. It was pioneered by a remarkable man, Dr. Judah Folkman. More than the ingenuity of his ideas, I am more impressed by the stories I've heard about how Dr. Folkman would listen to, and work with, any parent who dropped by his lab, desperate for a treatment that might save their own child's life.

It is that kind of hope and optimism that propels us in what we do with the MagicWater Project. And it is with researchers and oncologists like Folkman that we work with, who are never too busy to sit down with a desperate parent, and discuss how they can save a child's life.

Last summer and fall, we put Max on a modified version of the drug combination used in the trial mentioned. The trial consisted of low-dose, oral Cyclophosphamide, Etoposide, Celebrex, Thalidomide and Fenofibrate. Max was on the first three, but it was difficult for him to tolerate both chemos (first two) at the same time. Now, Max is on orally-administered Topotecan, Celebrex, and Nifurtimox. In addition, he is back to taking Curcumin which has been shown to display significant tumor properties in-vitro and in-vivo (but in one study it was contraindicated with Cyclophosphamide so that's why we stopped using until recently)

Where were we...? Oh yes, the article link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/health/18seco.html?em&ex=1205985600&en=902861333e61ca8d&ei=5087%0A

1 comments:

Randee said...

This is a very encouraging article and the research is for children which is even better since there is so little directed at children's cancer right now. People like those working so hard on the Magic Water Project will change that someday--SOON!!!
Keep on keeping on!
Randee

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