Thanks to a novel treatment developed by Cancer Research UK, thousands of youngsters receiving chemotherapy could have their hearing preserved.
Adding sodium thiosulfate, better known as an antidote for cyanide, to a standard chemotherapy treatment reduced the risk of hearing loss by fifty percent, according to clinical trials.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is anticipated to approve the medication before the end of the year, opening the path for its implementation by the National Health Service (NHS).
Experts think it will prevent the majority of children treated with cisplatin, a chemotherapy treatment for children with solid tumors, from one of its most deadly side effects.
We are asking readers to dig deep and raise donations so that hundreds of youngsters a year can be used as test subjects for these potentially life-saving medications.
The trial’s director, Dr. Penelope Brock, stated that its approval would “change lives.”
According to the retired pediatric physician at Great Ormond Street Hospital, it is more difficult for children to adapt to acquired hearing loss than to being born deaf, as evidence indicates that it affects every part of life.
She stated, “A large proportion of youngsters treated with cisplatin alone are left with irreversible hearing loss, which can be debilitating.”
Even modest hearing impairment can have a significant impact on a child’s future development. Key consonants such as’s’, ‘f’, ‘t’, and ‘k’ are heard at high frequencies, and their loss can be especially challenging for children who have not yet acquired speech.
This therapeutic combination could ensure that parents are not confronted with the distressing prospect of their child’s hearing being compromised in exchange for successful cancer treatment.
Since its discovery in the 1980s, cisplatin has been the gold standard for treating solid tumors in children’s malignancies, resulting in significant increases in survival.
However, the potent medicine can harm inner ear structures, resulting in hearing loss in up to two-thirds of children treated with it. 116 youngsters with liver cancer were recruited by an international team of researchers and given either cisplatin alone or cisplatin followed by sodium thiosulfate six hours later.
While nearly two-thirds (63%) of children who received cisplatin alone experienced hearing loss, only one-third (33%) of those who received both medicines did.
Importantly, the research found no difference in overall survival or recurrence of cancer when the second treatment was administered.
US regulators approved the medication earlier this year, with the UK drug watchdog awaiting approval and European regulators anticipated following suit. Experts anticipate that the combination will be approved for a variety of juvenile cancers presently treated with cisplatin, including neuroblastoma, liver cancer, and brain tumors.
This is one example of the life-changing work of Cancer Research UK that we encourage our readers to support. This will help reverse the trend of pediatric cancer, the largest cause of disease-related death in children.
All funds donated will help Cancer Research UK’s research into childhood and adolescent cancers, so that more children and young adults may survive cancer with a high quality of life.
Professor Pam Kearns, the expert on childhood malignancies at the University of Birmingham for Cancer Research UK, stated, “No child should be forced to endure a disability as a result of their cancer treatment.
Hearing is priceless, and we are thrilled that we can protect the future development of more youngsters without jeopardizing the possibility of healing their disease.
