Guest Author
“Your child has cancer,” is not a diagnosis any parent wants to hear. And yet, over 15,000 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with cancer annually, many of them in South Florida.
The third-largest state in terms of pediatric population, Florida accounts for 6% of all new pediatric cancer cases in the country. According to a 2023 study, incidences of childhood cancers have increased slightly since the early 2000s, with leukemia, brain tumors, and lymphoma being the most common forms.
The good news is, pediatric cancers are now more treatable than ever, and the therapeutic goal of curing cancer in children is often more likely than among adults. In fact, survival rates in children with malignant tumors and blood cancers have risen dramatically over the past decades. According to the American Cancer Society, 85% of children diagnosed with cancer now live five years or longer after diagnosis.
That is a remarkable achievement, driven by early detection and better treatment options. September marks Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month, an important opportunity for us at Nicklaus Children’s Health System and the communities we serve to celebrate how far we have come in pediatric oncology.
But it also serves as a reminder that not all children with cancer can yet be cured, and receiving a cancer diagnosis is extraordinarily stressful to children and their families. At Nicklaus Children’s, we treated more than 4,100 children with cancer last year, making us one of the largest pediatric cancer care providers in South Florida.
Despite the relatively high success rate of treating pediatric cancer patients, we must remain restless and passionate in our quest to successfully treat every child, so they can become healthy, productive and happy adults. Children are not small adults, which means pediatric cancer care is a different challenge from adult oncology.
Caring for children requires different skills and treatments can’t simply be adapted by lowering the dose. Extensive research is needed to make sure cancer treatments are safe and effective in children.
The reality is, in this age of personalized medicine, many novel treatments are commonly available for treatment in children only long after they were approved for adults. That makes sense given the intricacies of treating pediatric patients, but we must not rest on our laurels for making huge strides in the treatment of adult cancers while these same therapies remain unavailable or unapproved for use in children.
At Nicklaus Children’s, we are poised to advance pediatric cancer care. We collaborate with academic institutions to accelerate research and ensure children benefit from promising treatments as quickly as possible.
A recent collaboration with Florida International University, along with the Live Like Bella Foundation, which helped fund the cancer research, tested cancer cells from relapsed patients against a library of 120 FDA-approved drugs.
This new functional precision medicine approach, combining genetic testing with personalized drug screening, helped patients achieve remission, offering a potential breakthrough in pediatric cancer treatment by quickly identifying the most effective medications. Remarkably, over 80% of patients saw positive results from this approach.
Our Helen & Jacob Shaham Cancer & Blood Disorders Institute is committed to the highest level of care so that no child has to leave the state, no matter their treatment needs.
Our experts work collaboratively to provide holistic care to all children with cancer. At the Shaham Cancer Institute, we have already implemented leading-edge approaches such as genetic screening, the latest diagnostics and imaging, and we are offering clinical trials that give hope to those who have run out of options.
However, treating children with cancer takes a village and that village is our community right here in Florida. Our children are our future, quite literally.
We all must invest in their health and well-being. This means that advancing cancer care for the kids of Florida should be a priority for all, not just this Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month, but each month of the year.
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Matthew A. Love is president and CEO of Nicklaus Children’s Health System in Miami.
