How precision medicine turned Jesus ’ unique tumor into an operable one

On a hot, August day in a Boston park, Jesus Apolinaris Cruz cooled off with a water squirt gun fight with his mother and sister. As he nimbly ran and dodged their aim, he twisted around to sneak shots of water back in their direction.  Peals of laughter rang out from the group as Jesus landed a jet of water on his sister. It’s hard to imagine that just weeks earlier, Jesus, 13, had undergone surgery near his hip to remove an unclassified tumor, so-described because it couldn’t be categorized as any specific kind of cancer. “We had been praying for months that the surgery would go well,” says Maria, Jesus’ mother. The family had uprooted themselves, moving to Boston from Puerto Rico, to get the right care for Jesus’ tumor. The successful surgery was only possible because a coordinated team of clinicians and researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center made a match between the genetic profile of Jesus’ tumor and an experimental drug, which could turn off the specific genetic variation that was spurring the tumor’s growth. The team included pathologists, orthopedic surgeons, oncologists and members of the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Experimental Therapeutics Program. “Before treatment with the experimental drug, which targets a genetic abnormality called a TRK gene fusion, Jesus’ tumor was about the size of a large grapefruit,” says Dr. Katherine Janeway, pediatric oncologist and clinical director of the Solid T...
Source: Thrive, Children's Hospital Boston - Category: Pediatrics Authors: Tags: Our Patients’ Stories Research and Innovation Cancer clinical trials Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Dr. Katherine Janeway Dr. Steven DuBois Experimental Therapeutics Program pediatric cancer precision medicine sarcoma Solid Tumors C Source Type: news