A Global Movement in Childhood Cancer
by Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, M.D.; St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; Executive Vice President; Chair, Department of Global Pediatric Medicine; Director, St. Jude Global
In his final State of the Union address, President Obama said, “For the loved ones we’ve all lost, for the family we can still save, let’s make America the country that cures cancer once and for all.” That launched Vice President Joe Biden’s cancer moonshot, one in which we at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital believe. It’s the legacy of our institution’s founder, Danny Thomas, who declared on the day St. Jude opened its doors “no child should die in the dawn of life.” He was one of many trailblazers in the fight to find the cure for cancer.
Donald Pinkel was the first director at St. Jude and another trailblazer whose vision of integrating service and research has inspired many doctors for decades. It’s hard to believe now, but more than 50 years ago Dr. Pinkel was criticized for pursuing a cure for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. His pursuit of a cure for what was at that time assumed to be incurable was the moonshot that has taken us where we are today.
He once said his motivation was “emotional, rather than intellectual. Those children suffered agonies beyond the imaginable; but even worse, they were considered lost causes.” And when in the first years of research to find a cure, Dr. Pinkel was asked what were the major challenges hindering progress, he said: “Drug resistance, drug toxicity, meningeal relapse, and most important, pessimism.”
Our Moonshot: Reaching Every Child
We believe no child is a lost cause. Today, more than 90 percent of children with ALL treated in centers with resources can be cured. But that’s only part of the story.
St. Jude created the Department of Global Pediatric Medicine in 2016 to advance the field of global pediatric oncology and blood disorders. As the result of a two-year strategic planning process, St. Jude Global launched in May 2018 to ensure that every child with cancer and other catastrophic diseases will have access to quality care and treatment no matter where in the world they live.
It is our moonshot to take Danny Thomas’ vision that no child should die in the dawn of life and spread it to the entire globe, particularly in low- and middle-income countries where we can make a significant difference.
Global Legacy
St. Jude planted the seeds for our global focus in 1991 with a special project at the Benjamin Bloom Children’s Hospital in El Salvador. It created capacity for treating children with cancer through extensive mentoring and training of the workforce, advocacy to local authorities and hospital administration, and support for the development of a local nonprofit organization for patients and families.
The success of this program led to a more structured and expanded effort at St. Jude, the International Outreach Program. The IOP focused on a twinning partnership model, and by the end of 2015 it had formed mentoring partnerships with 24 programs in 17 countries. It impacted the care of 3 percent of all children with cancer in the world.
It’s estimated that more than 400,000 children develop cancer each year around the world. More than 90 percent of these children live in low- and middle-income countries, where access to care is difficult and outcomes are poor; most of the children die from their disease, and half of them are not even diagnosed.
Our St. Jude Global team believes we can make a difference and reverse those trends. We can improve the survival rates of children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases worldwide by training the necessary clinical workforce, developing and strengthening health systems and patient-centered initiatives that encompass the entire continuum of care, and advancing knowledge through research.
Working in Alliance
At St. Jude Global we know that the task ahead of us is immense; we need to work hand in hand with partners around the world to fulfill our collective vision. We have brought all our partners together to form the St. Jude Global Alliance. This network takes a multilevel approach to develop global, regional and hospital-based initiatives centered on member partners to form a global community that is built on a shared vision, mutual respect, and a desire to share knowledge to advance care. The St. Jude Global Alliance targets seven key regions and works through transversal, or cross-regional, programs that harness the expertise of St. Jude Global teams to improve the standards of care and train practitioners around the world.
In response to this major challenge and to strengthen the health systems to support the development of effective childhood cancer programs, in 2018, St. Jude became the first World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Childhood Cancer. This collaboration is centered on supporting WHO in including childhood cancer in national cancer control plans, developing tools for health systems innovation diffusion and leadership engagement, and strengthening childhood cancer control and management through technical support.
Building on that collaborative work, and with a strong financial commitment by St. Jude, WHO announced the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer last summer, a true multi-sectorial initiative that brings together many organizations to articulate a global response against childhood cancer. The goal of this five-year effort is to bridge gaps that limit the care and cure of children with cancer worldwide, and ultimately cure at least 60 percent of children with six of the most common types of cancer by 2030.
Sharing Knowledge
Education is a vital piece of this work. In addition to our efforts with global partners to educate the health care workforce necessary to meet this challenge, the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences has launched the Master of Science in Global Child Health. Designed in collaboration with St. Jude Global, this program will help train the next generation of local and regional leaders. It is designed to offer students from around the world the transformative education needed to enhance the treatment and care of childhood cancers and catastrophic diseases in countries worldwide. The program provides the knowledge and scientific foundation for students to use as they help lead change in their home countries. The first class begins this summer, and we’re excited for what that will mean for the future of pediatric cancer care around the globe.
Working in silos, the vision that no child should die in the dawn of life seems like an impossible dream. But we don’t stand alone. We face this challenge alongside our friends and global partners. Together, we know this wonderful dream to care for all children with cancer everywhere in the world is within reach. This work is bigger than ourselves. The world is changing, and it’s because we will accomplish this exciting mission to cure all children around the globe together.
