St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and long-time collaborating institutions in Singapore and China are working together to enhance pediatric cancer treatment and cure rates in Asia.
The memorandum of understanding was signed March 1 in Singapore by representatives of St. Jude; the Singapore-based VIVA Foundation for Children with Cancer; the VIVA China Children’s Foundation of Hong Kong; the Shanghai Children’s Medical Center/National Children’s Medical Center; the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Singapore; and the National University of Singapore.
“This agreement is the latest milestone in a long and productive collaboration between St. Jude and colleagues and institutions in Asia,” said Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, MD, St. Jude executive vice president and chair of the hospital’s Department of Global Pediatric Medicine. “This agreement will help us leverage that success to advance training, medical treatment and research to more patients and their health care providers.”
St. Jude has had formal collaborations in the region since 2006, when the hospital joined with the National University of Singapore to announce plans for a Children’s Cancer Centre at the National University of Singapore. The collaboration has grown to include other institutions, annual forums and multiple collaborative initiatives.
In China, St. Jude and Shanghai Children’s Medical Center showed that pediatric acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) could be treated successfully and cost effectively. The results laid the foundation for a variety of pediatric cancer initiatives in China, including the first national Chinese collaborative study on childhood ALL, establishment of the first National Children’s Medical Center and the first China National Cancer Registry.
The memo of understanding reflects the St. Jude commitment announced last year to transform pediatric cancer care in low- to moderate-income nations that are home to 90 percent of childhood cancer patients, but where cure rates are still dismal. Within the next decade, St. Jude aims to influence treatment of 30 percent of pediatric cancer patients. Working with collaborators worldwide, St. Jude officials hope to raise survival rates from 20 percent to 60 percent for children with six of the most common cancers.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and cures childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. It is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to 80% since the hospital opened more than 50 years ago. St. Jude shares the discoveries it makes, and every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists worldwide can use that knowledge to save thousands more children. To learn more, visit stjude.org or follow St. Jude on social media at @stjuderesearch.