World Cancer Day: Research from Heidelberg

One of the biggest problems in treating cancer in children is the lack of specialized drugs. Only a small fraction of what is available for adult patients is available for children. Many of the new drugs that come to market are approved exclusively for adults.

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Illustration, Photo: Shutterstock
Illustration, Photo: Shutterstock
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

Cancer in children is rare, but one in five children who get it dies from it. There are few drugs for children. Researchers in Heidelberg grow mini-tumors that doctors from all over the world send them. They test drugs on them.

In 2022, more than 275.000 children and adolescents worldwide were diagnosed with cancer, and more than 105.000 children died from the disease. In Europe, 35.000 children are diagnosed with cancer every year, and in Germany, according to the Children's Cancer Registry (DKR), 2.400 children. By comparison, around 500.000 new cases of cancer are registered in adults in Germany every year.

The most common form of cancer in children is leukemia, while adolescents are most likely to develop lymphoma. According to the Frankfurt Foundation for Children's Cancer, 80 percent of those affected are cured. However, the chances of a cure for many types of cancer have not improved in the last 30 years - one in five children with cancer dies.

If a cured child later experiences a relapse, the prognosis is poor. The average survival time in such cases is eight months. Furthermore, there is no standardized treatment for relapses.

One of the biggest problems in treating cancer in children is the lack of specialized drugs. There is only a small fraction of what is available for children that is available for adult patients. Many of the new drugs that come to the market are approved exclusively for adults.

Researchers at the Hopf Center for Children's Tumors in Heidelberg are therefore relying on an individualized treatment approach using "mini-tumors." Since 2019, doctors - not only from Germany, but also from abroad - have been able to send tissue samples from children with cancer there, especially if they are high-risk patients or children who have already had a relapse.

Based on these samples, researchers grow hundreds of mini-tumors, explains Ina Eme, head of the Drug Testing Department. These small tumors, also known as organoids, allow for the testing of 80 different drugs in various doses and combinations. The drugs tested are mainly oncology drugs for adults, including those that have already been approved, but also those that are still in the clinical trial phase.

According to Dr. Emma, ​​Heidelberg has received more than 500 tissue samples so far, two-thirds of which were suitable for testing. In about 80 percent of these samples, a suitable drug was found, or medication, which led to tumor regression in laboratory conditions. About three weeks after the sample was taken, the researchers can know whether a particular drug is working or not.

In addition to drug testing, Heidelberg researchers are sequencing the entire tumor genome to better understand the biological processes behind childhood cancer and severe blood diseases.

The Hopf Center for Childhood Tumors is a joint institution of the German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg University Hospital, and Heidelberg University. The institute collaborates with numerous German and international research centers.

The Hopf Center is also leading the first pan-European genome sequencing program for children with cancer. So far, more than 1.700 patients have been included in the program, and more than a hundred centers from 12 European countries and Israel have sent tumor samples from affected children to Heidelberg.

Although other research centers are also using mini-tumor cultivation to test drugs, the Heidelberg project is unique in its systematic methodology. Due to the large number of tumors it collects, the center has an extensive database, which allows for more precise and reliable results, explains Uta Dirksen, a pediatric oncologist at the University Hospital in Essen.

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