Cancer and Blood Disorders

Miguel Navarro, 18, was blindsided by a cancer diagnosis. Today, he’s on the road to recovery.

A single blow to 18-year-old Miguel Navarro’s shoulder turned his world upside down. He was boxing with his friends one afternoon when he felt a snap. He took a hit to his shoulder and immediately knew something was wrong.

“That punch altered my world,” said Miguel.

Miguel went to the emergency room where he found out he fractured his humerus, the long bone in the upper arm. Unfortunately, that wasn’t where his medical journey ended. While undergoing imaging, doctors noticed something amiss, and so Miguel underwent a myriad of tests. At the time, doctors thought what they saw in his imaging results could be a benign tumor.

On Dec. 12, 2017, Miguel was told the tumor wasn’t benign. He had osteosarcoma, an aggressive type of bone cancer. Read full post »

Milton Wright III has returned to work at the hospital that saved his life.

Milton Wright III has only worked at Seattle Children’s for a couple months, but the hospital has been his second home for much of his life.

Milton’s childhood unfolded within Seattle Children’s walls — making friends, experiencing loss and facing death more times than he can count.

Today, Milton is back at Seattle Children’s — not as a patient, but as an employee and a symbol of hope.

“I want to do something that’s worthy of my life being saved,” Milton said.

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At Seattle Children’s, many children and young adults with cancer are finding hope in T-cell immunotherapy – an experimental treatment that boosts a patient’s immune system and uses it to fight a disease.

Seattle Children’s researchers are leading clinical trials in which a patient’s T cells are reprogrammed to express a chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) on the surface of the cell. The CAR is like a puzzle piece that’s designed to attach perfectly to a specific antigen or marker on the surface of the cancer cell. When they attach, the CAR T cells attack the cancer cells as if they were fighting an infection.

In just five years, Seattle Children’s cancer immunotherapy program has grown tremendously to include trials that target leukemia, brain and spinal cord tumors and solid tumors. Curious how these clinical trials work? Read on to learn more about the immunotherapy clinical trial process at Seattle Children’s.

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Harper was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia when she was just 10 months old.

When asked about the birth of her daughter Harper, Sydney Beare lights up.

“Harper was 8 pounds, 1 ounce, 21.5 inches and the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen!” she said.

By all accounts, Harper was an exceptionally happy, and seemingly healthy, baby. She began sleeping though the night when she was just a few days old and almost never fussed, even when teething. Beare said her daughter was “totally content.”

But in July 2017, when Harper was 9 months old, she became seriously ill.

Harper first developed an ear infection, a staph infection and had an infected cut on her finger. During the next month she became lethargic and pale.

Beare noticed bruises on her legs, and later on her back and face. Harper began having diarrhea and vomiting. She also slept all the time. Despite all this, Harper’s well-child checkup in August revealed no concerns.

Then, on Aug. 21, Harper woke up with a fever.

“She was just lying there, with dry, cracked lips, screaming,” Beare remembered, choking back tears. “I was worried something was wrong but I pushed that idea aside because I didn’t want to think anything bad could happen to my baby.”

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Bretton Chitwood, 18, is an avid hockey player. He was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2016, but has since returned to the ice. He now plays with a custom prosthesis.

On May 18, 2016, Kara Chitwood and her son Bretton Chitwood traveled from their home in Lynden, Washington, to Seattle Children’s for what they thought would be a routine outpatient appointment to get magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on Bretton’s ankle. Instead, they didn’t end up leaving the hospital. That day would become one they would never forget.

The pain Bretton was experiencing in his ankle was more insidious than they could have ever imagined. Doctors found a mass and said they needed to do a biopsy to determine what it was. One possibility was the unthinkable: cancer. Read full post »

When Emmy Cole was 2 years old, her mother noticed her struggling to walk. She grabbed her cell phone and tearfully recorded Emmy wince in pain as she took only a few, small steps. She knew something was terribly wrong with her daughter. Immediately after, they came to Seattle Children’s in search of answers. Emmy didn’t walk the rest of the day.

They received heartbreaking news. Dani and James Cole, Emmy’s parents, faced the unimaginable reality of helping their daughter through a devastating diagnosis: cancer.

On April 13, 2015, Emmy was diagnosed with high risk neuroblastoma.

Watch Emmy’s story from the beginning, from small, painful steps, to miraculous leaps. Read full post »

Ashton Leeds, 8, was treated with larotrectinib at Seattle Children’s for thyroid cancer that had spread to his lungs and lymph nodes.

EDITOR’S UPDATE: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the cancer drug Vitrakvi (previously known as larotrectinib). Vitrakvi is indicated for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with metastatic or unresectable solid tumors that have a NTRK gene fusion without a known acquired resistance mutation, and have no satisfactory alternative treatments options or whose cancer has progressed following treatment. Read more about this landmark decision. 

Dr. Doug Hawkins, division chief of Hematology and Oncology at Seattle Children’s, remembers matching one of the first pediatric cancer patients to an experimental drug that targets a specific set of genetic alterations associated with soft tissue tumors. The drug, larotrectinib, is designed to selectively stop the resulting abnormal tropomyosin receptor kinase (TRK) fusion proteins from promoting cancer cell growth.

“I was so excited to share the test results with the family and present them with the option of enrolling in a clinical trial for this new medication,” Hawkins said. “At the time, I had a pretty good inkling the drug was going to work, but there was very limited evidence of its effectiveness in children. It’s incredibly special that families were willing to take a chance on this drug early on.”

Today, the promising evidence in support of larotrectinib is building. A paper published in The New England Journal of Medicine documents the drug’s effectiveness in treating TRK fusion-positive cancers regardless of patient age or tumor type. The paper includes data from 55 patients, ages 4 months to 76 years and representing 17 different TRK fusion-positive tumor types, treated with larotrectinib. Overall, 75% of patients responded to the treatment and at one year, 71% experienced no disease progression since starting treatment. Read full post »

With 2018 in full effect, On the Pulse is taking a moment to hit rewind to share five stories that might have floated beneath the flurry of headlines in 2017.

We invite you to take a look back at some of last year’s stories that inspired us and gave us hope.

1. A Mother’s Intuition Leads to Picture-Perfect Treatment of Eye Cancer

Courtesy of Amanda De Vos Photography

Amanda De Vos, a professional photographer, was reviewing shots she took of her 15-month-old identical twin daughters, Julia and Jemma, when a photo of Julia caught her attention.

De Vos would learn that the photo she took of Julia would help to identify a rare eye cancer, retinoblastoma, that was stopped in its tracks with an innovative treatment at Seattle Children’s.

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Nico, 15, got a surprise visit from the Seahawks and Sea Gals.

Today, rounds of a different kind were made. Instead of doctors in white coats, the Seattle Seahawks and members of the Sea Gals, dressed in blue and green, made their way through the hospital to visit patients and families at Seattle Children’s. They couldn’t have picked a better day to bring cheer to 12s in the hospital: Dec. 12 (12/12).

“Today brought us a lot of joy, even if it was just for a minute,” said Alberto Tobias, father of Nico Tobias, a patient at Seattle Children’s. “It was really fun. We were so happy to see the players walk into our room.”

The Captain’s Blitz is an annual tradition that brightens the day for Seahawks fans big and small at Seattle Children’s. Read full post »

For the first time in her life, 7-year-old Erin Cross was healthy enough to go trick-or-treating.

This Halloween marked a monumental milestone for 7-year-old Erin Cross. For the first time in Erin’s life, she was healthy enough to go trick-or-treating. And her costume of choice – an old woman – held a special meaning for her family.

Two years ago, Erin’s family was facing the devastating reality that they may never see her grow up. But today, she’s in remission thanks to a groundbreaking immunotherapy clinical trial at Seattle Children’s. Her family finally has the chance to envision her long life ahead, a life filled with normal things, like trick-or-treating and playing with other kids.

“Erin has been so incredibly brave,” said her mother, Sarah Cross. “For us, normal was being in the hospital. Today, she’s cancer-free and getting back to normal life.” Read full post »