Cancer

Curing Cancer in Children

On her 14th birthday, Kaytee Ivison was sent to Golisano Children’s Hospital, where she learned she had leukemia. Hospital nurses and staff welcomed her to the pediatric unit with a birthday cake and balloons.

The advanced treatments she received in the following month — chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant—ended up saving Kaytee’s life. She is now expected to live a long life and, in the words of her mom, “has really come into her own.”

Saving Kids and Improving Lives

A few decades ago, 80 percent of children with the most common form of leukemia died from the disease. Now, 80 percent of children survive.

This good news, though, has created a whole new kind of challenge; children who survive cancer are more likely to become deaf, suffer from kidney failure or heart failure, or develop another type of cancer.

Your gift to Golisano Children’s Hospital can help us develop new therapies that will improve the quality of life for childhood cancer survivors.

And of course, your gift will help in the most important way of all: developing the treatments that mean no child will ever have to die from cancer.

How Your Gift Can Help

Few things are as devastating as a diagnosis of cancer in a child. Your gift will support programs and people that help children beat cancer, and then go on to live healthy lives.

• The Western New York Center of Excellence in Childhood Immune Defense Research Program
  The immune systems of children with cancer are frequently damaged—by cancer itself, by its treatment, and by transplants that are used to save the child’s life. As a result, children need specialized care to ensure that their bodies can make infection-fighting cells. This Center of Excellence will provide all the services a child needs to help with immune system problems.
• Childhood Cancer Phase I Therapeutics Clinical Trials Center
  Clinical trials give children access to the most advanced experimental therapies. But, currently, there is no program in our area to provide access to clinical trials. This new center will ensure that our children can get breakthrough therapies, right in their own back yard.
• Multidisciplinary Childhood Brain Tumor Program
  Brain cancer is the second-most common childhood cancer. And survivors almost always face big challenges in living a normal life. This new program will help enhance quality of life and preserve brain function in survivors of childhood brain cancer.
• Adolescent and Young Adult Program
  When young people ages 15-25 get cancer, they often “fall between the cracks” of pediatric and adult care. This new program will bridge that gap, providing age-appropriate care to late adolescents and young adults—a group for which cancer is the leading cause of death.
• Training and Retaining Leaders
  With your support, we will be able to train the researchers, doctors, nurses, and staff who will treat cancer in the future—while we retain the exceptional people who are treating cancer today.

More Information

For more information regarding how you can support these important programs, please contact:

Golisano Children's Hospital
University of Rochester Advancement
Phone: (585) 273-5948