Browsing Tag

cancer

Improving End-of-Life Care for Pediatric Cancer Patients

Dr. Emily Johnston is a pediatric oncologist at Children’s of Alabama.

Almost 3,000 children die from cancer each year in the United States. But in pediatrics, unlike adult care, there are no quality measures for end-of-life care. That’s changing, however, thanks to the pioneering work of Children’s of Alabama pediatric oncologist Emily Johnston, M.D., M.S.

“My goal is to establish quality measures for end-of-life care for children with cancer and then leverage those quality measures to reduce disparities in care,” Johnston said.

The mission comes from her time as a fellow, when she saw many deaths that did not go the way she believes patient families would have wanted. Systemic issues, like the inability to get a child into hospice given the lack of pediatric hospices, presented significant barriers.

In researching pediatric end-of-life issues, she found significant variation in care for underrepresented minorities. For instance, Hispanic children with cancer are more likely than non-Hispanic white children to die in the hospital and have medically intense end-of-life care. “When I would say this to people, they would tell me, ‘It’s okay, it’s what they want,’” Johnston said. But through dozens of interviews with bereaved parents, she found that was not the case.

During one series of interviews with 28 parents of 24 children who died of cancer, most parents said they preferred a home death and did not want their child dying in the restrictive environment of the intensive care unit (ICU). While they wanted their children to die peacefully, parents didn’t want to stop cancer treatment. They also told interviewers that they needed more education around end-of-life issues and more support around non-medical issues, such as financial challenges, so they could focus on their child. Parents also talked about a sense of abandonment after their child died.

Johnston and her colleagues then brought together a panel of nine experts in pediatric oncology, including representatives from nursing, social work and palliative care, to develop quality measures for end-of-life care for children with cancer, much like those available for adults. The 16 measures fit into four categories:

Avoiding medically intense end-of-life care
The location of death
Hospital policies/programs
Supportive care

For instance, one indicator measures the proportion of children who were intubated during the last 14 days of life, given that intubation usually increases suffering. Another measures the proportion of children who received palliative care or hospice support in the last month of life since both offer an additional layer of support for families, help alleviate suffering and facilitate the identification of the goals of the family and child.

Hospital policies designed to improve the patient end-of-life experience included having pediatric palliative care services and a bereavement program available and eliminating visiting-hour restrictions, including age and number of visitors. Johnston and her colleagues are now working on validating and implementing the quality measures.

But, she said, “that research is a very big-picture; it’s not going to affect care tomorrow.” So, she partnered with University of Alabama at Birmingham palliative care physician Susan Buckingham, M.D., to improve access to palliative care for patients with high-risk cancers such as some brain and solid tumors.

Today, instead of starting palliative care near the end of a child’s life (and then only if the parent or physician requests it), families meet with Buckingham at diagnosis and have access to palliative care services throughout their child’s illness. Meanwhile, Buckingham attends oncology staff meetings and is now part of the multidisciplinary team treating those patients. She can spot unmet needs early in the process and work collaboratively with the nurses, social workers and other clinicians caring for the child and family. “We’ve done interviews with 12 families who had early palliative care about their experiences, and the feedback has been really positive,” Johnston said. As one family told her, “I didn’t really understand what palliative care did until we needed it, and I was so glad I already knew them by then.”

January 16, 2023 by childrensal

Hope and Cope Program Helps Families Navigate Medical Journeys

With the diagnosis and treatment of childhood cancer or serious blood disorders like sickle cell disease comes an emotional rollercoaster for the child and the family. From practical issues including getting to appointments, caring for siblings, and managing the costs of care to psychosocial issues such as anxiety, fear, grief, and even anger, there are needs beyond the medical support physicians and nurses can provide. That’s where Children’s of Alabama’s Hope and Cope Psychosocial and Education Program comes in. The program provides emotional support and services using a family-centered approach in which the family and healthcare providers work together to best meet the needs of the entire family.

“It is becoming more and more important to provide these services to families dealing with cancer and serious blood disorders,” program director Avi Madan-Swain, PhD, said. “Even if we cure the disease medically, for some the cost of cure is high and results in neurocognitive difficulties as well as psychological difficulties, such as post-traumatic stress disorder.”

To reduce stress during hospitalizations or clinic visits, the Hope and Cope Psychosocial and Education Program offers inpatient schooling (either group or bedside); art, music, and animal-assisted therapy; parental consult service; a weekly inpatient caregiver dinner support group; and expressive activities such as drumming, drama, and journaling.

The program’s education/school liaisons help patients transition back to school, maintaining communication between the medical team, the child’s school, and the family and providing education to schools and families about special services the child may need. This includes classroom presentations to help classmates understand the child’s diagnosis and treatment.

Once a child is diagnosed with cancer or a serious blood disorder, families complete a screening questionnaire to help the team identify immediate needs. The team shares the results with the family and initiates evidence-based interventions to address identified needs. The overall goal is to prevent crises by intervening early rather than being reactive. The team then meets weekly to discuss the psychosocial needs of newly diagnosed patients and those who have relapsed and need close monitoring. They also talk about any difficulties the patient/family may be experiencing in the inpatient unit or outpatient clinic.

“We’re building wellness and resiliency,” Madan-Swain said. “We’re not just looking at family risk factors, but also their strengths, and developing plans to support young people and their families to manage the challenges of their medical journey, make the most of their strengths, and ultimately celebrate life.”

A new initiative is strengthening psychosocial service delivery for parents of children undergoing bone marrow transplant, Madan-Swain said. “I’ve been working to systematically standardize parent assessment and education and providing psychosocial resources because of the intensity of the process. It’s like being in a pressure cooker.”

One thing that sets Hope and Cope apart from similar initiatives at other children’s hospitals, according to Madan-Swain, is its bereavement component. Services begin when the disease is no longer treatable and continue for two years after a child’s death. All family members work with art and music therapists to create a “legacy piece,” such as a painting, sculpture, or music. For instance, the music therapist may record the child’s heartbeat and place it in a bear for the family. “We found that families who work on meaning-making activities cope much better after the loss of the child,“ Madan-Swain said. “This has really pushed us in the direction of making sure that we’re not waiting until the very end to create a legacy piece.”

Despite the success of the program, Madan-Swain is not resting. “I always want to move on to developing psychosocial care pathways based on family risk level and providing evidence-based interventions and expressive activities to improve adjustment and quality of life for both our oncology and hematology patients and their families,” she said.

September 2, 2022 by childrensal

Hematology and Oncology

Cancer Predisposition Clinic Aims to Change the Trajectory of Genetically Based Cancer

Li-Fraumeni syndrome. Von Hippel-Lindau. Rhabdoid tumor predisposition syndrome. Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome. Retinoblastoma.

These are just a few of more than a dozen rare genetic conditions that predispose a child to cancer. Overall, at least 10% of children with cancer harbor a disease-associated pathogenic variant in a known cancer predisposition gene. While few can be prevented, regular surveillance can, at the very least, find malignancies early when treatment is most effective.

That’s the idea behind Children’s of Alabama’s Cancer Predisposition Clinic, now in its third year.

“We provide comprehensive care and screening for these patients with the goal of detecting cancers at an early stage in order to provide the best care and outcomes for the patients,” said Elizabeth Alva, M.D., assistant professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Division of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. “It used to be there was nothing we could do about this terrible diagnosis,” she said. “Now we know there are definitely ways to look for cancers early and help patients.”

In addition, the clinic provides psychological support for families and determines if the genetic condition affects other family members, she said.

Typically, primary care physicians follow children with cancer predispositions. But those doctors may not be aware of or able to provide the level of evidence-based surveillance that Alva offers.

That’s why these clinics are a growing area in the pediatric hematology/oncology world, particularly at the larger children’s hospitals. “We felt that we definitely needed to provide that same level of care here in Alabama,” Alva said.

Alva and neuropsychologist Avi Madan-Swain, Ph.D., are currently following about 25 patients. Patients come to them through the pediatric cancer genetics clinic, where families are tested and counseled. Alva provides the screening, which ranges from regular ultrasounds to CT scans and MRI, while Madan-Swain addresses the family’s psychological needs.

One benefit to the clinic is that if there is a cancer diagnosis, the child and family are already comfortable with the hospital and the clinical team.

Alva is building a database of patients to gain a better understanding of disease development and progression, while Madan-Swain plans research around the psychological impact on families that have a child with a predisposition syndrome.

Understanding Genes
Learn more about the UAB Department of Genetics.

August 20, 2019 by childrensal

Hematology and Oncology

The Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship Focuses on Key Quality-of-Life Issues

HemOnc_ICOS

As more patients—adult and pediatric—become long-term cancer survivors, it becomes ever more imperative to identify ways to prevent, or at least manage, long-term complications from the cancer and its treatment.

Just how to do that forms the cornerstone of the research conducted at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine through its Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship (ICOS). “We are interested in developing a strong base of researchers who are focused on studying cancer outcomes long-term and identifying the issues cancer survivors face,” said ICOS Director Smita Bhatia, M.D., MPH. “We are continually striving to improve the quality of life of cancer survivors.”

Diverse Group

A diverse group of researchers from UAB participates in ICOS, including epidemiologists, physician scientists, behavioral scientists, molecular biologists and nurse scientists. They come from numerous departments, including radiation oncology, medical and pediatric oncology, and surgical oncology. Within ICOS, they have access to a state-of-the-art infrastructure that supports outcomes research, thus facilitating the transitional research that is integral to the Institute’s mission.

“The overarching goal of the ICOS is to conduct cutting-edge research in cancer outcomes across the age spectrum,” Bhatia said.

Since its founding in 2015, Institute researchers have received more than $10 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health and private foundations, and published more than 250 papers in peer-reviewed journals, a third of them high-impact journals.

Asking the Right Questions

All research studies start with asking the questions that no one has asked before, Bhatia said. “Questions are definitely going to move the field forward and make people’s lives better,” she noted.

For instance, a current study is examining long-term morbidity in pediatric cancer survivors, 60 percent of whom will eventually develop complications related to their cancer treatment. “We are systematically studying the molecular basis of these long-term complications,” Bhatia said.

Questions include: Why does radiation increase the risk of other cancers? How does a child’s DNA make them more prone to radiation-related cancers? Are there ways to predict children who are more likely to develop treatment-related conditions and find alternative treatments to attack their cancer?

The Institute is also studying adherence to oral chemotherapy. “We find that children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) often don’t take their medications as directed,” increasing their risk of relapse, Bhatia said. “We are now testing strategies to improve adherence to oral chemotherapy.”

To explore the impact of radiation and chemotherapy on the developing brain, researchers are using MRI to identify cellular signs of “chemo brain” and looking for ways to protect the brain during treatment.

“When a new patient comes in with cancer, the first thing we have to do is get rid of that cancer,” Bhatia said. That typically means using agents known to increase the risk of neurocognitive deficits. “So we have to develop methods to reverse or halt these complications.”

Several other research questions are under investigation, including ways to:

Expand the HPV vaccination rates in childhood cancer survivors
Determine the burden of morbidity older cancer survivors experience
Understand the best way to treat older patients with cancer without causing undue toxicity
Improve end-of-life experiences for cancer patients

Understanding ICOS Research
Learn more about ICOS research and watch an interview with Smita Bhatia, M.D., MPH.

December 28, 2018 by childrensal

Hematology and Oncology

Developmental Therapeutics Offers Next Generation of Cancer Medicines

HemOnc_Therapeutics_1

One of the most devastating things a doctor has to do is inform a family that their child with cancer has run out of options. At Children’s of Alabama, however, clinicians often have one more thing to offer: access to early-stage clinical trials for potentially lifesaving drugs through its Developmental Therapeutics Program.

“Development therapeutics is about the next generation of medicines that will hopefully improve outcomes and reduce side effects for children with cancer,” Program Director Gregory Friedman, M.D., said.

Children’s is able to provide access to investigational compounds because it is one of just 21 pediatric oncology programs in the country invited to participate in the Children’s Oncology Group Phase 1 and Pilot Consortium. Consortium studies, Friedman said, “are how we’ve improved survival rates in recent years.”

Studies offered through the Developmental Therapeutics Program are generally Phase 1 or Phase 2 trials designed to demonstrate proof of concept, safety, tolerability and efficacy of new compounds. Currently, the program is managing more than 40 such studies.

Friedman is also developing a translational program to quickly move investigator-initiated research from laboratories at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Children’s into the clinical setting by providing an interface between the investigators and regulatory bodies, including the Food and Drug Administration. In addition, the Developmental Therapeutics team works with industry to develop new agents and is exploring participation in disease-specific pediatric consortiums.

Through the Developmental Therapeutics Program, Children’s also participates in the NCI-COG Pediatric MATCH trial, the largest precision medicine trial of its kind, in which tumor tissue is sent to the NCI for molecular testing to identify genetic abnormalities driving cancer growth. The goal is to then identify investigational or existing drugs to target those abnormalities and conduct clinical trials of the agents.

Friedman stresses that it takes a team to run the program including other physicians, a nurse manager, a clinical trial specialist, a data information coordinator and regulatory experts.

The goal, he said, is to continue to grow the program. “Our ultimate goal is to have a trial available for every child and family in these very difficult situations where few treatment options exist,” he said.

Viral Therapy in Malignant Brain Tumors Offers Hope

Developmental Therapeutics Program Director Gregory Friedman, M.D., is the principal investigator on one of the most exciting studies underway in pediatric cancer: evaluating the use of a cold sore virus to treat children with progressive malignant brain tumors. The approach is based on the finding that pediatric brain tumors are highly sensitive to genetically engineered oncolytic HSV-1 G207, which lacks genes essential for replication in the normal brain. The Phase 1 trial is designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability and preliminary efficacy of G207 delivered directly into the brain via intratumoral catheters.

Friedman and his team presented preliminary results on the treatments effects during the International Symposium of Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Meeting in Denver in June 2018. There were no dose-limiting toxicities or serious adverse events related to the virus and five of the six patients who received treatment demonstrated positive responses. One patient is now more than 21 months out from the treatment with a significant improvement in their well-being.

Since then, at least three other children have been treated safely with evidence of favorable drug activity. The next phase of the study will test the treatment’s safety in combination with a single dose of radiation, which is designed to enhance an immune response against the tumor.

Cancer Fighters
Learn more about the Alabama Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders. www.childrensal.org/cancer.

December 20, 2018 by childrensal

Hematology and Oncology

A Holistic Approach to Childhood Cancer Survivorship

HemOnc_TLC

Significant improvements in pediatric cancer management means that an estimated 84 percent of children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer will become long-term survivors. However, while they may have overcome their original malignancy, they have a high risk of complications, including impaired growth, heart and lung problems, secondary cancers, learning disabilities and vision or hearing problems.

Yet, said Smita Bhatia, M.D., MPH, who directs the Institute for Cancer Outcomes and Survivorship at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine, “Research shows that primary care physicians are reluctant to take care of cancer survivors because these survivors have so many treatment-related complications. Often, these kids fall through the cracks.”

That’s where the Taking on Life After Cancer (TLC) survivorship program comes in. It focuses on improving the health and well-being of childhood cancer survivors and is the only clinic of its kind in Alabama.

“There is an increased need to provide care tailored to the long-term survivors of pediatric cancer,” said the program’s Medical Director Kimberly Whelan, M.D., MSPH. Not only are they at increased risk for numerous medical problems, she said, but they also often experience neurocognitive issues that can impact their schooling or job performance. “We strive to look at them holistically and see how they’re doing physically, emotionally and mentally, and give them the tools they need to succeed in life.”

When the clinic began in 2004, patients were seen just once starting two years after their last treatment. Today, patients are seen annually. “We learned that following them long term is important because the issues they face two to three years after treatment are different than the ones they may face five or 10 years after therapy,” Whelan said.

Wendy Landier, Ph.D., RN, CRNP, manages the clinical aspects of a patient’s visits. During the one-day visit, patients and their families see a physician or nurse practitioner who specializes in survivorship care, as well as a social worker to help with any issues related to costs and insurance. A neuropsychologist screens for problems with school or job performance. “The visit is tailored to meet the individual needs of each survivor,” she said. “For instance, educational materials are personalized so they address the specific treatment that each survivor received, as well as the potential complications that can arise as a result of that treatment.”

Patients also have the opportunity to participate in research studies designed to advance knowledge about survivorship issues. “We’re trying to learn more about why some survivors have certain complications and others don’t, and to develop mechanisms to reduce those complications,” Whelan said.

All visits are tailored to the individual child, their cancer and previous treatments. So a child who previously received radiation therapy to the chest, for instance, will undergo tests to assess lung and heart function. Other children may need their bone health checked regularly.

One task the clinic doesn’t do is screen patients for any recurrence of the original cancer, Whelan said. “So maintaining their relationship with their primary oncologist is important,” she said.

Patients are referred by their primary care physician or self-refer, Whelan said. Either way, the patients’ primary doctor receives summary reports. “We would love to partner more with the primary care physicians in the care of these patients,” she said.

The clinic currently follows about 500 patients, with another 100 added each year. All can be seen for the rest of their lives, regardless of age. “Our goal is to make sure they stay healthy,” Whelan said.

Dealing With a Cancer Diagnosis
Learn about Children’s of Alabama’s Hope and Cope Psychosocial Program.

December 20, 2018 by childrensal

Newer Posts