BC Children’s Hospital has joined CureWorks, an international collaborative of leading academic children’s hospitals focused on improving care for children with hard-to-treat cancers by expanding clinical trials and accelerating the development of leading-edge immunotherapy treatments.

Every year in BC, approximately 150 kids are diagnosed with cancer. Thanks to rapid and significant advances in cancer treatments, 80% of kids are now expected to survive. For the remaining 20%, who have cancers that are difficult to treat with traditional therapies, immunotherapy provides new hope.

Working with the newly formed Seattle Children’s Hospital–based CureWorks, researchers at BC Children’s will further the science of a promising type of immunotherapy called “chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy,” add to the body of knowledge around this innovative treatment, and develop expertise within the research institute and the hospital.

The first CAR T-cell clinical trials will launch this fall at BC Children’s and will initially be available to children with certain types of leukemia who are no longer responding to conventional treatment.