There have been great advancements in the treatment of adult cancer, but this has not always been the case for children and young adults. Our research is dedicated to ensuring we can change this.
Over the last 50 years many types of childhood cancer have seen improvement in survival rates. Although this progress is extremely welcome, many childhood cancers have seen little or no improvement.
The progress we have made comes at a cost due to the treatments used. Many former patients have long last physical vulnerabilities like the risk of heart disease and development of secondary cancers. Sadly over the last 20 years only 3 new treatments for children with cancer have been developed and damaging conventional therapies such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy are still being used.
Therefore the focus of our research is to facilitate a rapid progression from “Bench to Bedside”. This means enabling the discovery and the translation of new therapies from the laboratory to the clinic where they can directly benefit children with cancer. We also aim to be the charity of choice for researchers looking for support in the development of new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of children with cancer that limit, or if possible, prevent the debilitating long term side-effects of many current treatments.
View our full strategy >The research aims of Kidscan are summarised by the following key objectives:
In short our research priorities include: