The genomic analysis found Scout’s cancer was linked to a gene mutation known as an ALK fusion, allowing scientists to test in the lab how it would react to an ALK-inhibiting drug called alectinib.
Promising results provided a lifeline for the Bradstreets after seven months of chemotherapy failed to stop Scout’s tumour from growing. When she began the treatment in November, her reaction was almost immediate.
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Recent scans show the tumour has disappeared. A medicine dissolved into water and given to her in apple juice twice a day helps to keep the cancer from returning – a small sacrifice compared to endless hospital visits for intense chemotherapy.
“It’s a different child who’s with us now,” father Sean said. “If you looked at her today, you wouldn’t know there was anything going on.”
Melbourne father Mohammed Haddara was initially reluctant to subject his family to genetic testing after doctors found a tumour in his daughter Daad’s brain.
But after the nine-year-old’s tumour returned a week and a half after she had it surgically removed, and her older sister Mounawar also fell sick, genetic testing confirmed he and wife Rima were both carriers for a gene predisposing their children to a spectrum of childhood malignancies.
The discovery helped her doctor find an immunotherapy treatment which has destroyed the tumour in Daad’s brain and helped her return to life as normal.
“She’s energetic [again], she likes to ride her bike, she likes to go to school … she loves sports,” Mohammed Haddara said. “Nothing’s a guarantee in life, but when they gave it [the immunotherapy] to her, bang – it worked perfectly.”
Rima Haddara with 10-year-old daughter Daad, whose brain tumour has shrunk to almost nothing thanks to a personalised immunotherapy. Credit: Joe Armao
All nine of Australia’s children’s hospitals are involved in the program, and all genetic testing is free.
Medicines are funded by a mix of charities, clinical trials, and philanthropic support from pharmaceutical companies and hospitals.
Ziegler, from the Children’s Cancer Institute, said the program would continue to track children to see how they responded to the therapies long-term.
“They say saving one life is like saving a universe,” he said. “That is literally how it feels to see even one child who is doing well, where previously they would have had no hope.”
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