presentation

The social programme "Children against Cancer".
The Clínica Universidad de Navarra, in its commitment to Paediatric Oncology, promoted "Children against Cancer", a programme that focuses on paediatric tumours, with the goal of channelling the solidarity of individuals and companies to put them at the service of research into childhood cancer and families, to facilitate access to specific treatments.

Research to cure
Research is core topic both to make progress in curing childhood tumours and to improve current treatments and reduce the sequelae that may limit the quality of life of these children in the future. The advances that are being developed to treat cancer in adults cannot be applied to children, as the mechanisms by which childhood tumours originate are different. It is therefore essential to support specific lines of research. Thanks to clinical and basic research, the therapeutic success rate for some childhood tumours has risen from 25% to 75% in recent years.

Niños contra el Cáncer channels its support for research through the "laboratory de Terapias Avanzadas para Tumores Sólidos Pediátricos" of CIMA and Clínica Universidad de Navarra, which works to promote the application of scientific advances in medical practice, i.e. its goal focuses on transferring the research carried out at laboratory to the patient's bedside as quickly as possible. For this reason, researchers and specialists are developing both preclinical studies and clinical trials with different therapeutic strategies, such as the use of oncolytic adenoviruses. This involves using genetically modified viruses (cold viruses) to selectively kill tumour cells without affecting healthy ones.

Researchers are also promoting new research with immunotherapy treatments that stimulate the patient's immune system to recognise and destroy tumour cells more effectively. Immunotherapy is about treating cancer not by directly targeting tumour cells, but by activating the immune system to react against the tumour, thus limiting toxicity to the child.

Supporting children through specific treatments
Children Against Cancer supports children in accessing specific treatments to overcome their illness. Among other techniques, the Clinic carries out proton therapy, the most precise external radiotherapy modality which is considered the treatment of choice for children, surgery to treat very complex tumours and to preserve the limb in paediatric bone sarcomas, or high-field intraoperative magnetic resonance imaging, which increases safety when treating a brain tumour as it confirms in real time, before the end of surgery, whether the surgical goal has been achieved, avoiding future re-interventions.