Childhood Brain Cancer Symposium
As part of Go Grey in May, and Brain Cancer Awareness Month, the Robert Connor Dawes (RCD) Foundation and The Kids Cancer Project hosted The Childhood Brain Cancer Symposium on the 26th May at the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation, Melbourne.
The symposium focused on the key challenges faced by the paediatric brain cancer community. Some notable attendees included; Dr Jordan Hansford, Clinical Oncologist at the Royal Children’s Hospital; Professor David Eisenstat, Paediatrics Monash Health; and Associate Professor Ron Firestein, Head of the Cancer Centre at Hudson Institute of Research.
Prior to the event, our co-hosts interviewed different people affected by this disease, including our Music Therapist Manager, Sarah Punch. Their responses can be found here.
Despite the diversity of stakeholders, the same themes emerged; the need more funding for increased collaboration to develop:
i) robust clinical trials
ii) new treatments that have fewer toxic side effects and
iii) ongoing wholistic care for survivors
On the day, many of Australia’s leading clinical and academic researchers were brought together to discuss their barriers in the context of those already identified. We also sort opinions from UK, USA and Canadian clinical experts in the field, you can watch their responses here. This provided the focus for very productive and robust discussions. The identified challenges will be distilled down into three major, actionable areas and next steps are to present these to the Health Minister requesting further support.
