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When 11 year old Frankie Biggs passed away from osteosarcoma, his family asked Children with Cancer UK and the Bone Cancer Research Trust to do something about this brutal disease.
On Thursday 31st January 2019, Children with Cancer UK and the Bone Cancer Research Trust came together to hold the first ever International Osteosarcoma Research Symposium.
On World Cancer Day 2019 (February 4th), Children with Cancer UK and the Bone Cancer Research Trust announced their new partnership in Frankie’s memory to advance research into osteosarcoma.
It had broken his knee cap in half and spread round his little body, both knees and lungs. My son took everything that stood in his path, from MRI scans, a bionic leg, the lower lobe of his lung being removed to eventually too many brain tumours to count. This shouldn’t be happening to children and in the 2 years of living and breathing cancer with my son, I also watched 6 other children die from this awful disease, one of them was Frankie’s girlfriend, who he met at the hospital. He was my world, my hero, my best friend and my life. Cancer has changed us all, but it made my son the hero he was and still is, in my eyes, today.
This is a unique opportunity, collaboration is essential to make progress with rare forms of cancer. The Bone Cancer Research Trust are the only charity dedicated to fighting primary bone cancer and we are delighted to be moving osteosarcoma research forward with Children with Cancer UK. We are committed to supporting the research community so that we can revolutionise osteosarcoma treatments and improve outcomes for patients and their families.Dhivya O’Connor, CEO at Children with Cancer UK, said:
We have made huge strides in survival rates for childhood cancer over the past years. But there is still a long way to go, particularly for those cancers with poor prognosis like osteosarcoma. We have partnered with Bone Cancer Research Trust as they share our vision to develop kinder, more effective treatments for young patients. We are hoping this partnership sees a step change in survival rates and quality of life for children and young people affected by this devastating disease.
The last session of the day at the first International Osteosarcoma Research Symposium in memory of Frankie Biggs was a workshop. Facilitated by Dr Ian Lewis and Dr Sandra Strauss the workshop was to look at prioritising future funding. This video shows the ideas generated and the discussions had which would then be taken forward by the Bone Cancer Research Trust and Children with Cancer UK.
Patient Story – Gaspard
Gaspard was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma in 2018 when he was three. His mum Caroline tells their
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