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Cancer in children is a disease for the whole family

11 August 2014 / 17:08:27  GRReporter
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Anastasia Balezdrova

"Marianna Vardinogianni-Elpida" Oncology Centre that was opened in the autumn of 2012 is perhaps one of the most modern oncological hospitals for children worldwide. The hospital has three haematology-oncology wards, one ward for bone marrow transplants as well as medical consulting offices outside the wards and rooms for day treatment. They are attended by children, who have been discharged from hospital, to undergo specific treatments once a month.

The nice building of the centre also houses a school, although the lessons often take place in the rooms of the children. The hotel part of the complex has 30 rooms that accommodate children from the country and their mothers, and sometimes fathers, who find it hard to bear the cost of a stay away from home that often lasts several years.

A few months ago, a bank of bone marrow donors was opened in the centre in order to provide transplants for the young patients who suffer from various types of cancer. Director of the transplant unit and scientific head of the bank of bone marrow donors Stelios Grafakos speaks before GRReporter about the hospital that is a private donation to the state and where the treatment of children is absolutely free.

Mr. Grafakos, what is the capacity of the hospital? How many children affected by cancer can undergo treatment in it?

The hospital consists of all the wards that deal with child cancer. In particular, we have three paediatric haematology oncology clinics and a transplant ward. Each ward has the capacity to treat 28-30 children. The number of hospital beds in the transplant ward is 15. The hospital meets 80% of the needs in Greece. There are children's oncology wards in Thessaloniki (2 units) and Heraklion in Crete too, which also work very well but they can admit a lower number of patients.

The hospital is part of "Aghia Sofia" Children's Hospital. It is a donation from "Elpida" association to the Greek state and its current requirements are met by the national health system. This means that the parents of sick children pay nothing for their treatment because all costs are covered by the state.

Are there cancers that are most common in children?

Cancer in childhood is different from cancer in adults, i.e. it occurs in a different manner. While the environment plays a major role in adults, as the smoker faces a high risk of falling ill with lung cancer or the person who does not eat properly is threatened with colon cancer, things in children are different. In them, genetic factors play a primary role, i.e. the liability of the child to develop a cancer, without this meaning that there is a heredity factor. Therefore, cancer in childhood, such as leukaemia, develops rapidly. However, children are very responsive to treatment. As a result, in 80% of the cases the treatment of leukaemia in children is successful. The corresponding rate in adults is 30%.

How quickly do you act once you have diagnosed the patient?

Typically, we act within a week. The treatment begins immediately after the first tests. We follow protocols that are applied in many Western and other countries and the results are very good, as I have already mentioned.

The hospital opened a bank of potential bone marrow donors earlier this year. Would you tell us about it?

I would like to say first that the transplantation of bone marrow or stem cells is aimed at fighting especially dangerous diseases. As I said, 80% of children affected by leukaemia undergo a successful treatment by chemotherapy. The remaining 20% whose condition is bad from the start or in whom the disease is recessive undergo transplantation because medicines cannot solve the problem. Such diseases are high-risk leukaemia, immune deficiency, thalassaemia, and the like.

To proceed with the transplantation we have to find a suitable donor, i.e. one whose cells have a genetic makeup similar to that of the patient. We first seek a donor among the family members, but the probability of finding a compatible donor, usually among the siblings, is in the range of 25-30%. Therefore, there is no suitable donor for the majority of the patients among their family members and we have to look for one.

Fortunately, today there are donor banks in many countries with more than 23 million donors, volunteers, from around the world.

Since their number in Greece was small and the level of awareness on the subject was low, three years ago the University of Patras created the first donor centre called "Donate Life" that already has 5,000 registered donors. The broader initiative, however, started 5-6 months ago with the establishment of "Orama Elpidas" association by "Elpida" and its founder Marianna Vardinogianni. The main objective of the association is to create a donor bank to meet the needs of patients in Greece. So far 4,500 volunteers have registered and we hope to have 100,000 volunteers within five years in order to be able to find a suitable Greek donor for all those patients who do not have one among their family members. Today, in 90% of transplantations that take place using an "external" donor the transplants come from Germany, Italy and other countries.

Tags: SocietyChildrenCancer diseasesHospitalMarianna Vardinogianni-ElpidaBone marrow donor bankTransplantations
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