Finding Hope in Clinical Trials

At 7 years old, Kinlee Johnson was an avid reader. She earned good grades in school and loved playing softball. 

But during a tournament, Kinlee began to struggle. At first, her parents thought she was sick from playing ball all day in the heat. Soon they knew it was something more serious.

Kinlee visited an eye doctor. He told her she just needed bifocals. Kinlee’s mom questioned that diagnosis. 

But before they could visit a specialist, Kinlee got very sick, very fast. Doctors at a local hospital diagnosed a brain tumor called medulloblastoma. 

Surgeons removed Kinlee’s brain tumor. Then they wanted her to begin conventional x-ray beam radiation and chemotherapy. Kinlee and her family had a decision to make. 

They had heard about the SJMB12 clinical trial at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. This clinical trial was the first to assign treatment based on the type of medulloblastoma a child has. The clinical trial also used proton therapy, which targets the tumor precisely, sparing healthy tissue and causing fewer side effects.

“That was one of our big deciding factors,” says Kinlee’s mom, Nicole Johnson. “Kinlee’s clinical trial at St. Jude was the absolute best for our daughter at that time.” 

At St. Jude, Kinlee’s medical team was able to classify her medulloblastoma as belonging to the WNT group. This was a huge relief to Kinlee’s parents, because the WNT group is the most curable of the medulloblastoma types. 

Because of WNT’s high cure rate, St. Jude doctors proposed less radiation and less chemotherapy for Kinlee than has traditionally been used for patients with medulloblastoma. This meant that Kinlee was among the first patients to receive lower-dose therapy for her brain cancer.  

Today, Kinlee is a happy, healthy teen. She still loves to read. Still loves softball. She has also started tumbling classes, and she is in the gifted program at her school. 

Kinlee advises other eligible patients to consider enrolling in clinical trials. 

“I would definitely recommend one,” she says.