Dr. Gordon Cohen is a St. Baldrick’s Fellow at the John Hopkins Children’s Center. He’s testing new drugs for patients with Ph+ALL who relapse or fail to respond to treatment. He explains Ph+ALL symptoms, treatment options, and how your support is moving clinical trials forward to help kids with this disease.
What is Ph+ALL?
Philadelphia Chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph+ALL) is a rare subtype of the most common childhood cancer, acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).
Dr. Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo is a St. Baldrick’s researcher at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and a member of the St. Baldrick’s Scientific Advisory Committee. He explains what Langerhans cell hystiocytosis is, how it’s diagnosed and treated, and how research is helping kids and adults with this disease.
What is Langerhans cell hystiocytosis?
Langerhans cell hystiocytosis, often called LCH, is a disorder where the body produces too many Langerhans cells.
A Langerhans cell is a type of white blood cell that normally helps the body fight off infection. In LCH, the body produces too many of these cells. The cells build up in the body, sometimes damaging organs or forming tumors.
What is DIPG?
DIPG stands for diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma. It is a type of high-grade glioma, a brain tumor that comes from cells called glia that surround, protect, and otherwise support the nerve cells in the brain.
DIPG is always found in the brainstem. This part of the brain controls many basic functions like breathing and swallowing, as well as muscles that help with speech and eye movements.
It is most common in elementary school-aged children, but it can affect children of any age.
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About 250 kids in the U.S. are diagnosed with DIPG each year.
Why do kids get cancer? That’s the big question we asked Dr. John Maris, who co-leads the SU2C-St. Baldrick’s Foundation Pediatric Cancer Dream Team. Researchers are working hard to find the answers because they could hold the cures to kids’ cancer.
Why do kids get cancer? In short, there’s no single, easy answer.
The answer is complicated, said Dr. Maris.
Childhood cancer is real, and it affects thousands of kids and families around the world every year. If you’re interested in joining the fight against childhood cancer, there are a few realities you should know:
Every year, 300,000 families around the world will hear, “Your child has cancer.” But you can do something about it.
If you want to get involved in the fight against childhood cancer, here are 10 facts you should know.
1. Childhood cancer is the number one disease killer of children in the U.S.
It’s the second leading cause of death (following accidents) in children ages 5-14.
Taking care of a shaved head is easy with these six tips.
Every year, tens of thousands of men, women, and kids shave their heads for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. They do it for one reason: to cure cancer. That’s right — in 2015, more than 50,000 people shaved their heads for St. Baldrick’s, raising money for childhood cancer research. That’s a lot of bald heads!
Learn more about the St. Baldrick’s Foundation >
Whether you’ve recently shaved or you’ve been sporting the no-hair look for years, do you know the best ways to care for your head? Neither did we, so we turned to the men and women who have helped more people go bald than anyone else we know: our St. Baldrick’s barbers.
Hair care professionals from across the U.S. answered our call for advice, and they gave us some great tips! Here’s what our barbers had to say:
Dr. Ralph Ermoian is a radiation oncologist and St. Baldrick’s infrastructure grant recipient at the University of Washington. He explains what proton therapy is, how it works, and how this treatment is helping kids and adults with cancer.
What is proton therapy?
Proton therapy is a type of radiation used commonly for children with cancer. Like traditional x-ray radiation, it is used to treat cancers, but proton therapy affects less of the healthy tissue surrounding the tumor.
Surviving childhood cancer isn’t the end of the fight. As survivors age, heart disease and secondary cancers become two big risks, often caused by the very treatment needed to save their lives. Read on to learn more about the two main threats to survivors and how St. Baldrick’s researchers are working to help.
Since surviving a brain tumor as a child, Ambassador Grace has dealt with long-term effects from her treatment.
After beating childhood cancer, survivors should be living long and healthy lives, but that isn’t always the case.
You know St. Baldrick’s — but did you know these 10 fun facts about us?
1. St. Baldrick isn’t a real guy.
If he isn’t real, then where did the name come from? St. Baldrick is a mashup of St. Patrick’s Day and the word “bald” — two things which sum up the humble beginnings of the St. Baldrick’s Foundation.
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