CHLA receives grant to study effects of chemoimmunotherapy in childhood neuroblastoma

A team of investigators at Children's Hospital Los Angeles has received a major, three-year grant from the V Foundation for Cancer Research to study the effects of chemoimmunotherapy in children with neuroblastoma.

Neuroblastoma is the most common solid tumor occurring outside the brain in children. Less than 50 percent of patients with high-risk disease survive. Recent pilot data showed unprecedented results from using chemoimmunotherapy - a combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy - on the more than half of treatment-resistant patients.

"These early results are very exciting and have changed the standard of care for these children," said Shahab Asgharzadeh, MD, director of the Basic and Translational Neuroblastoma program at CHLA's Children's Center for Cancer and Blood Diseases. "We would like to thank the V Foundation for their support of research into the mechanism of action of chemoimmunotherapy in childhood neuroblastoma so that, hopefully, we can discover how to make it effective for all children with this devastating disease."

This grant will fund research to discover how chemoimmunotherapy acts to destroy neuroblastoma. This information will provide the investigators with insights as to why some patients fail to respond. Armed with this knowledge, the researchers can develop strategies for modifying chemoimmunotherapy so that it effectively fights neuroblastoma in children that currently fail to respond to this treatment.

Source: Children's Hospital Los Angeles