Last year, around 14,000 children were diagnosed with cancer, according to the National Institutes of Health. One in eight of those children didn't survive.
September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and at Cook Children's Medical Center in Fort Worth, they're on the front lines of trying to treat and beat cancer.
Landon Kimich is like most two-year-olds. He enjoys playing on his iPad, with toy trucks and riding trains, like he did this week at Trinity Park in Fort Worth.
"Very active little two-year-old, very curious," said his grandmother, Patricia Kimich. "At home, he wants to be outside and play."
Playing outside has been difficult, though. Landon was just seven-months-old when he was diagnosed with a form of cancer called Neuroblastoma, which is a kind of cancer that forms in immature nerve cells, according to the Mayo Clinic.
"I can't tell you how many days we've been in the hospital," Kimich said.
Four surgeries, 25 rounds of chemo and Landon's Neuroblastoma has not relented.
"His first Thanksgiving was in the hospital, his first birthday was in the hospital," Kimich said. "Just those things are taken away. In a way, it strips their childhood."
Each year, 750 children are diagnosed with Neuroblastoma, according to Cook Children's. The oncology department diagnoses 170 children each year and also receives transfers from other hospitals.
There is a network of 1,800 cancer survivors, as well and right now, 2,500 patients are taking part in various clinical trials through the hospital, including Landon.
In the last two years, 49 patients have visited a lead-lined room, equipped with an adjoining family room where an intercom allows patient and family to talk and see each other through glass. They've come to Fort Worth for a treatment called the I-131 metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG). MIBG uses radiation to target the cancer cells.
"You’re pumping poisons into them to save their lives. It’s kind of a weird concept, but it's what we have to do to get him cured," Kimich said.
That means Landon is in near total isolation in the lead-lined room. He received the treatment on Tuesday and will be isolated for three to five days as radiation leaves his body. Family members tend to his need for food and entertainment through the glass and in short visits inside the isolation room while wearing full protection gear for their safety.
"They’ll wait a few days for the radiation to clear out of his body," said Dr. Meaghan Granger, director of the Neuroblastoma program at the hospital. "And of course, the radiation will still be left behind in the tumor, hopefully killing all those individual cells off one by one so there’s no more."
Cook Children's is the only hospital in Texas and the southwest region to offer the MIBG treatment, which is what brought the Kimich family from Plantersville and their original hospital in Houston.
While Landon's treatment is being research and tested in these trials, not every treatment possibly available to children is being worked on in the cancer community.
Dr. Granger says funding is an issue for childhood cancers on a national level and the hope is this Childhood Cancer Awareness Month will yield more philanthropy to help find a cure.
"There are actually therapies that are not being pursued because there’s not the money to do so," Dr. Granger said. "And those of us in the pediatric oncology community don’t feel that that’s right. We feel we should look at everything and leave no stone unturned because that one drug sitting on the shelf could be their cure."
While some childhood cancers have a 90-percent survival rate nowadays, more severe forms of Neuroblastoma, like what Landon has, aren't so lucky. It's too early to know how MIBG has benefited Landon. He'll return to Fort Worth in six to eight weeks for follow-up tests. He and his family have seen other Neuroblastoma patients, children just as young as he is, not survive the illness and so they know the reality of what this disease can do.
"It’s our reality, it’s a reality that Landon may not make it, we know that. We’re praying and hoping for the best," Kimich said.
They're hoping MIBG will remove the Neuroblastoma from his body. They know reoccurrence is highly likely with this form of cancer, but they remain optimistic the radiation will work and others will join the fight to erase kid cancer.
"We’ve got to find a cure," Kimich said.
The Kimich family has a Facebook page dedicated to Landon's journey, a battle against cancer. It's a journey they view as one where you have to remain positive. It's called Loving Landon.
For more on Cook Children's Medical Center's MIBG therapy, click here.
