Preventing Heart Failure in Kids with Cancer

Spotlight on a St. Baldrick’s Consortium Research Grant

Sixty-two percent of childhood cancer survivors will develop at least one harmful, long-term effect from the very treatment that helped save their lives. Congestive heart failure is one such effect that survivors could face as a result of chemotherapy treatments.

Researchers at the University of Buffalo found that “some children who were treated with anthracylines [a chemotherapy drug], which are powerful antibiotics, developed serious heart problems, including congestive heart failure, later in life.” They also found that survivors could develop these cardiac problems anywhere from 1 to 15 years after the use of these drugs in their treatments.

The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is funding a consortium research study to help prevent this development of heart failure in kids with cancer. The consortium, titled “Consortium for Pediatric Intervention Research,” is lead by Dr. Saro Armenian of Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope.

Dr. Armenian says that “1 in 10 children treated with high-dose anthracyclines will develop congestive heart failure (CHF) and survival following CHF is poor, with 1 in 2 dying within five years of diagnosis of CHF.”

Dr. Armenian, along with four other consortium members, are analyzing studies in adult non-cancer populations that have found a medication which may help prevent the onset of CHF. The research and strategies found in these adult non-cancer populations may prove effective in childhood cancer survivors, as well. This St. Baldrick’s funded consortium will be conducting clinical trials through a collaboration of five COG-member institutions which have the potential to “not only improve overall cardiac function, but prevent the likelihood of developing CHF in survivors at highest risk,” says Dr. Armenian.

Childhood cancer survivors should live long and healthy lives, free of heart failure and other long-term effects. With the help of St. Baldrick’s volunteers and donors, the Foundation can continue to fund the best and brightest researchers who can one day make this a reality.

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Members of the Consortium for Pediatric Intervention Research include:

Saro Armenian, M.D. – City of Hope – Beckman Research Institute
Melissa Hudson, M.D. – St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital
Sarah Gelehrter, M.D. – University of Michigan – C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital
David Hodgson, M.D, M.P.H. – University of Toronto
Karen Wasilewski-Masker, M.D., MSc – Emory University