The Childhood Cancer Blog

The Childhood Cancer Blog

Welcome to The Childhood Cancer Blog
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Jennifer Toth and her nurse, Pat Brophy, in 1995.

Jennifer Toth and her nurse, Pat Brophy, in 1995.

Jennifer Toth was just 2-and-a-half years old when she was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma, a rare liver cancer. Her nurse, Pat Brophy, was not only a medical caregiver to Jennifer, but also a source of encouragement and support to her parents. 

“Years after treatment, Pat was one of the first people who encouraged me to consider nursing, mentioned somewhat in passing but taken to heart as I considered potential career paths,” said Jennifer. 

Jennifer followed in the footsteps of her beloved nurse and is an oncology nurse at the same hospital where she received treatment... Read More

Alix Seif, MD, MPH, an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and ALSF Grantee

Alix Seif, MD, MPH, an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is two decades into her career as a leading childhood leukemia researcher, but her journey into unlocking the potential of immunotherapy was fate from the start. During her first year of oncology fellowship, her very first patient was a young baby with relapsed acute myeloid leukemia. He was waiting for new treatment ideas after frontline therapies had failed. Then, he developed an infection, one that could’ve been life-threatening. Instead... Read More

CJ and Hope Miller

They never thought it would happen twice. 

Hope and CJ Miller are as close as siblings can be. Less than a year apart in age, they enjoy pranking each other and simply being each other’s best friend.    

When Hope was in seventh grade, a test in her PE class led to an early dismissal from school. Her blood pressure and pulse were elevated, and she had difficulty breathing. Over the next three months, a visit to her primary care physician and four bronchoscopies would confirm a diagnosis: mucoepidermoid carcinoma, a rare form of lung cancer that made itself at home in Hope's... Read More

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