For more than three decades, the University of Birmingham has been at the forefront of cancer research and clinical trials. Ros Dodd reports on some of the transformational advances in treatment pioneered here.
Four decades ago, only 17 per cent of children survived neuroblastoma, an aggressive cancer and the most common childhood tumour outside the brain. Today, 64 per cent are treated successfully.
It’s a great improvement – but still not good enough, says Pamela Kearns, Professor of Clinical Paediatric Oncology and Director of Birmingham’s Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit (CRCTU), set up more than 30 years ago and now one of the largest cancer trials units in the UK.
