Johns Hopkins division of Pediatric Oncology is an international leader in the diagnosis, treatment and investigation of childhood cancer. The division provides comprehensive care for children with every form of cancer, at the same time advancing biological understanding and translating this information into new and improved diagnostic tests and therapies for worldwide use.

Dr. Curt Civin (Director and King Fahd Professor of Oncology and Pediatrics) heads the division, which includes a faculty of seven. The staff of doctors, nurses and 20 to 30 clinicians all work together as a multidisciplinary team to offer patients the finest, most advanced care in the world. The Pediatric Oncology clinical staff are housed in the Children’s Center at Johns Hopkins Hospital—Eight floor. New research and administrative facilities are located in the recently completed Bunting-Blaustein Cancer Research Center on the Johns Hopkins medical campus.

• Twenty years ago, only 30% of children with cancer could be effectively treated. Today, thanks to research, more about pediatric cancers is understood. The therapeutic window in which drugs can be administered has been increased, and doctors are better able to control the toxicity of treatment. Today, the survival rate is over 75%.

• Over 70% of the children in Maryland undergoing chemotherapy receive treatment at Johns Hopkins

• The Johns Hopkins Oncology Center is one of 27 National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers nationwide

• The Johns Hopkins Faculty includes over 70 distinguished clinicians and scientists devoted to cancer research, treatment and education

Pediatric oncologists, unlike doctors in many other specialties, have voluntarily regulated themselves, requiring that their patients enroll in clinical trials. Consequently, they are able to provide promising new experimental procedures as they are developed. This assures that new ideas for treatments are rapidly tested, allowing them to be immediately shared and adopted nationwide if they work, and to be abandoned if they prove useless. As a result, the advances in the field of pediatric oncology have been extraordinary.

THE JOHNS HOPKINS PEDIATRIC ONCOLOGY FRIENDS

The Johns Hopkins Pediatric Oncology Friends was founded in 1990 by Ginny Mitchell of Perryman, MD with the specific purpose of raising funds for pediatric cancer research.

Over the years, the group has grown to include parents of patients, members of the business community, community volunteers and others who lend their time and dedication to the cause of eradicating all childhood cancers. The plural is deliberate, as there are many different kinds of pediatric cancers—some quite rare. As Hopkins is the first choice of patients from all of the world and hence has seen a number of examples of even the rarest manifestations of the disease.

Though the Johns Hopkins institution has a variety of fundraising arms, the Pediatric Oncology Friends organization is the only one to raise funds specifically for research to cure childhood cancer. The organization has raised over $850,000 to fund the Hopkins research team.

Support of the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Oncology Friends has funded:

• Dr. Alan Friedman’s research, which has led to a better understanding of the genetic causes of acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a complex form of childhood leukemia that makes up 20% of childhood leukemia cases.

• The development of an internationally renowned pediatric bone marrow transplant program. The Hopkins program, led by Dr. Allen Chen, is one of the few in the world which successfully perform marrow transplants from unrelated donors.

• Dr. Ken Cohen’s research in the treatment and eradication of malignant pediatric brain tumors

• Dr. Donald Small’s promising development of a protein inhibitor to treat childhood leukemia.

• An ongoing fellowship program to attract the most talented scientists for study of pediatric cancer.

To raise funds, the Johns Hopkins Pediatric Oncology Friends host and support a number of fundraising events. In 1990, the Friends initiated an annual gala with silent and live auctions. Other fundraisers include an annual golf tournament, casino night and motorcycle raffle.

Local and national celebrities associated with the Friends organization include: author Tom Clancy: Orioles owner Peter Angelos and coaches Mike Flanagan and Elrod Hendricks; local television personalities Marty Bass and Scott Garceau; radio hosts Steve Rouse, Linda Sherman, and Tom Davis; actors Tom Selleck, Shemar Moore, Richard Belzer, Kyle Secor, Isabella Hoffman, and Daniel Baldwin; country music group BlackHawk and Harry Connelly, a photographer whose book Fighting Chance: Journeys Through Childhood Cancer focuses on experiences of patients and staff on Eight East.