MP after MP shared the devastating story of their constituents’ loss to the deadliest of childhood cancers a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) at yesterday’s Westminster Hall Debate; the Hansard recording is available here.
The debate was prompted by an e-petition initiated by Fiona Govan who lost her grandson Logan, (Logan, pictured with his mum Sapphire) aged three, in November 2017 and saw Health Minister Jo Churchill recognise that “research must continue and intensify” and that “we never want to see parents go through this pain”.
She talked about the work that is being done on earlier diagnosis, the launch of Brain Matrix, a targeted treatments trials platform and the £40 million announced by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) which includes funding for childhood cancers and DIPG.
However, all of this depends on having drugs that will successfully treat brain tumours. Without new drugs children diagnosed earlier may live longer but the outcome will be the same and there will be no new treatments to trial.
For the NIHR to translate discoveries into new treatments we need a significantly greater investment in discovery science, such as that undertaken by the Brain Tumour Research dedicated Research Centres of Excellence
Related reading:
If you found this story interesting or helpful, sign up to our weekly e-news and keep up to date with all the latest from Brain Tumour Research.