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UTHSCSA
UT SCHOOL OF MEDICINE:
CHILDREN’S CANCER RESEARCH
Greehey Institute Leading the Curve
By Francisco González-Scarano, MD
Almost 1,200 children and adolescents are diagnosed with cancer
in Texas each year, a number that is roughly 10 percent of all pedi-
atric cancers diagnosed in the United States. Approximately 200 of
them die of their disease each year, making cancer the most common
cause of disease-related mortality for Texans 0-19 years of age.
The good news is that a recent report from the Children’s Oncology
Group (COG), from the National Institute of Health (NIH), states
that survival rates for all childhood cancer have risen in the past 50
years from below 10percent to almost 80 percent. In Acute Lym-
phoblastic Leukemia (ALL) — a virtual death sentence when I was in
medical school — survival has risen from a median of six months to
an 85 percent overall cure rate. The therapies are getting better, but we improve quality of life for cancer survivors. Studies at GCCRI also
still deal with a broad range of sequelae, stemming from the toxicity of
chemotherapy and radiation. Many adults are now dealing with
chronic conditions due to cancer therapy from childhood.
Unfortunately, for most children with advanced or metastatic tu-
mors the survival rate has not changed in the past 20 years despite
more intense treatments. There is a large knowledge gap about the
underlying causes of pediatric cancers, in contrast to the many ad-
vances made in the more common adult neoplastic diseases. For ex-
DEAN’S MESSAGE
ample, molecularly targeted treatments based on the genetic changes
that induce some adult cancers may not apply to most childhood
malignancies. Furthermore, and regrettably, since children’s cancers
only represent one percent of all cancers, there is much less com-
mercial incentive for pharmaceutical ventures to pursue pediatric-
only treatments.
The Greehey Children’s Cancer Research Institute (GCCRI),
opened on the UT Health Science Center campus in 2004. They
are focused precisely on this knowledge and treatment gap, with a
mission to address the unique processes that result in pediatric can-
cer, and to develop treatments that will increase the cure rate and
address the resulting long-term damage that can be a side effect of
chemotherapy and radiation.
The institute was founded through a $200 million appropriation
from the Texas Legislature in 1999, part of the lawsuit settlement
from the tobacco companies for the cost of treating tobacco-related
medical conditions. Texas joined 45 other states in that lawsuit and
the settlement eventually resulted in a commitment of $17 billion
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