Grant: Team Grant: Childhood Cancer - Late Effects of Treatment

Fortunately, through the application of modern medical practice, many children are now cured of cancer. Unfortunately many of these survivors experience unwanted side effects that lead to health issues throughout their lives. It would be very helpful if we could predict which children and adolescents have the highest risk of developing these complications. One avenue that offers promise is the development and use of indicators commonly called biomarkers. Biomarkers are substances produced by the body either during the normal course of living or in response to an adverse condition such as an infection or cancer. We have developed a national team called ABLE (Applying Biomarkers to Long-term Effects in Child and Adolescent Cancer Treatment) that will assess biomarkers to identify children at risk and to predict the course of development of their long term complications. Identifying these high risk children means we can pro-actively choose appropriate and timely therapies to minimize or eliminate these effects, thus leading to healthier, happier lives. In this proposal we focus on ascertaining biomarkers associated with hearing loss, kidney failure, clotting problems, and a specific form of tissue rejection called chronic graft-versus host disease which is often seen after the blood and marrow transplantation used to successfully treat blood-based cancers. Ultimately, the ABLE team seeks to provide a national platform for applying biomarkers to other diseases in the future. This initiative is a major step forward to helping children and adolescents treated for cancer lead long and healthy lives after surviving their cancer.