Students in leadership positions learn about brain tumors and gain real world experience in running a non-profit business while raising funds for brain tumor research. Beneficiaries of the money we raise are Barrow Neurological Institute, National Brain Tumor Society, Phoenix Children's Hospital, Translational Genomics Research Institute, and University of Arizona.
"Be the change you wish to see in the world..." Gandhi
ANGEL’S STORY - as told by Angel's mother
On May 4, 2018 Angel Carden was like any ordinary 8 year old boy. He was just finishing up 3rd grade and enjoying the last days of Little League Baseball. After a day on the baseball field, Angel started to have seizures later on that night. We rushed him to an emergency room and a CT scan discovered that Angel had a large tumor growing in the back of his brain. Our world felt like it was ending, we were scared, and we desperately feared for our son’s dear life.
Angel was immediately transferred by ambulance to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, only one of a few places in the country that could properly care for our son. By the time we were admitted the tumor was causing increased pressure to his brain. This caused Angel to continuously vomit, barely speak, unable to move and started to lose his vision. Angel’s neurosurgeon Dr. Ruth Bristol was the one to diagnose our son with Stage 4 Medulloblastoma. She let us know that he had to immediately have surgery for 2 shunts, to relieve the pressure on his brain before any permanent damage was done. We spent 14 days in the Pediatric Intense Care Unit and Angel’s final surgery lasted over 7 hours to remove his brain tumor.
We prayed so much during that time, and had started to meet so many new people that cared for our son as much as we did. After the surgery Angel could barely move or talk, which is common with posterior fossa syndrome. When we left the hospital at the end of May, Angel was in a wheelchair and his Dad had to lift him into our car to take him home. Every day I watch my son defy the odds against him. He went to physical, speech, and occupational therapy; exceeded every goal they set for him in the span of 4 months. Since then Angel has went on to complete Proton Radiation Therapy as Scottsdale Mayo Clinic under Dr. Sameer Keole for about 8 weeks. He now walks, talks, and went from writing with his left hand to right hand. Angel is even going to school when he feels up to it. Angel just wanted to share his story to never give up, and he wants to give back for every child that may be going through the same circumstance that Angel has been through.
PLEASE SUPPORT SSBTR to help Angel and the far too many like him!
“Charity is a supreme virtue, and the great channel through which the mercy of God is passed on to mankind. It is the virtue that unites men and inspires their noblest efforts.”
— Conrad Hilton
For select indications including many primary and metastatic brain tumors, stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) is proven to be an effective alternative to invasive surgery, thus potentially improving patient quality of life while significantly reducing the cost of care.
In a study led by Michigan Medicine, researchers combined laser imaging with artificial intelligence to help predict brain tumor diagnosis within minutes.
A new publication in Nature Medicine highlights how the NIO Imaging System from Invenio Imaging allows surgeons to get a real-time image of a piece of tissue from surgery and use artificial intelligence to get a rough diagnosis of the tissue’s composition.
A new study shows that children with medulloblastoma who were treated with radiotherapy had better intellectual outcomes when the radiation was delivered as proton beam therapy compared to traditional photon radiotherapy.
Researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the University of Michigan are proposing a new approach that may lead to more accurate brain tumor diagnoses by combining advanced optical imaging and artificial intelligence.
Johns Hopkins researchers report that a type of biodegradable, lab-engineered nanoparticle they fashioned can successfully deliver a "suicide gene" to pediatric brain tumor cells implanted in the brains of mice. The poly(beta-amino ester) nanoparticles, known as PBAEs, were part of a treatment that also used a drug to kill the cells and prolong the test animals' survival.
An optical imaging technique paired with an AI algorithm was able to analyze a tissue sample in less than 150 seconds, demonstrating how machine-learning can make a huge impact in the operating room. The AI was also able to detect some details conventional practices could miss. The new research comes as AI has recently proven to outperform humans in diagnosing breast and lung cancer.
