Kansas City Business Journal: New Children's Mercy division targets kids-specific, less toxic cancer treatments
By Frida Humphreville
Children’s Mercy’s new pediatric cancer division has big plans for little ones.
Yong Li, director of the new Molecular Oncology and Cellular Therapeutics division, and Steven Leeder, senior vice president and chief scientific officer, explained what the division will add to emerging research on cancer treatment for kids.
How is this division different from other therapeutic programs at Children’s Mercy?
Li: First, it's primarily for pediatric cancer. That's our endpoint, and current pediatric survival (rates), they are pretty decent. About 80% to 85% of the pediatric cancer patients get more than five years of survival, and the vast majority are considered cured.
Even for that, 85% is a problem because most of the treatments are highly toxic. So the field is transitioning, not just so you get a patient to survive more than five years, but in a less toxic way, allowing for a normal life span. That's very unique for our center.
Therapeutics is also treating other types of disease, particularly in autoimmune disease, and there is lots of talk about how it can be extended to transplant patients. Many patients with transplant, they have some existing antibody that prevented them from acquiring the new organ, and cell therapy is the key technology moving forward.
Read the full article via the Kansas City Business Journal