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!
“It is every man's obligation to put back into the world at least the equivalent of what he takes out of it.”
— Albert Einstein
Chemical analysis of blood samples, combined with an artificial intelligence program, could speed up the diagnosis of brain tumours, according to research presented at the 2019 NCRI Cancer Conference. Researchers say their test, which works by detecting chemical clues shed by brain tumours into the blood, could help improve brain tumour survival by making diagnosis quicker and more efficient.
Glioblastoma (GBM) is the type of aggressive brain cancer that took the life of Arizona Senator John McCain in 2018. A notoriously difficult cancer to treat, there have been several high-profile drug failures recently. There’s new hope, however. Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet identified 10 potential drug targets for glioblastoma and published the results in the journal Cell Reports.
There is amazing new technology that’s helping surgeons perform the most delicate of all operations.
An adhesive hydrogel that reveals and kills cancer cells could mean the end of debilitating radiation, chemotherapy and surgery for children with brain cancer, a lethal disease that impacts thousands of pediatric patients each year.
Researchers have recently found a compound that can eradicate drug-resistant glioblastoma-initiating cells (GICs). This compound, could potentially be used to eradicate refractory tumors with minimal toxicity.
The combination of advanced imaging and artificial intelligence (AI) could make a brain tumor blood test leading to earlier diagnoses – and perhaps better prognoses, according to new research. Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, coupled with machine learning, could differentiate cancer patients and controls with better than 90% sensitivity and specificity.
