So I want to speak about children's brain tumour research. Not an area I'm an expert
in, but an area I care rather a lot about, for two reasons.
One because children's brain tumours are the biggest cancer killer of children, and secondly
because despite that it only attracts about 2% of the funding of cancer research overall.
As a parent I can't quite imagine how devastating it must be if you are informed that your child
has a brain tumour. An awful lot of patients unfortunately don't
survive having a brain tumour. And I've been very struck by the compassion and by the commitment
and by the sheer bravery of parents and children when they're going through dealing with this
really pretty horrible disease.
Well Sam is like many of my patients, truly inspirational. I met Sam first when he was
unconscious in the intensive care unit. And he gradually recovered from that operation
and restored himself to his normal self, whom I'd never met before he was ill. And he showed
great resilience and fortitude but had a particular skill in talking to people.
Despite having to manage that disease and all the treatments that went with it, the
three and a half years after that that he survived, he lived life to the full. So he
made sure that he completed his Duke of Edinburgh bronze award, he sailed with Ellen MacArthur,
he carried the Olympic torch, he even came to this University to help us launch the development campaign.
Erm so, it was just a typical day at school, just came home, had a headache. Erm, so I
decided I'd go just upstairs to go to bed to see if it wore off, the headache, and in
the process of being asleep, I had a fit.
And that's the other element that's so inspiring where Sam is concerned because he made sure
he used the time he had to raise awareness of this disease. But also to try and help
raise funds for better research, earlier intervention, better treatment, so that more children who
are diagnosed with brain tumours actually survive having that brain tumour.
As a childhood cancer specialist we've seen improvements in childhood cancer over the
last three decades.
Leukaemia is now 80 or 90% cured in many cases. The same is not true for brain tumours. Although
the survival has improved from 50 to 75%, 60% of those patients are disabled.
The funds that we're raising and generating at the moment are focused in two big areas.
One is getting the drugs into the brain to effectively attack the cancer cell whilst
minimising the risk to the brain. One method we're studying at the moment means we can
use 1/400th of the dose by introducing the drug directly to the brain. The second area
is to try and reduce the risk of brain injury during the time of operations and our intention
to install an MR machine in the operating theatre, to allow the surgeon to take real
time images of the state of the brain to assist him in reducing that risk, is an important
component of our planning for our future.
For the last three years I've taken two weeks of my annual leave to engage in a Nottingham
Life Cycle. So last year we cycled a bit over 1100 miles for stroke rehabilitation research.
Not long after we finished this, Sam's mother Pam White, wrote me a nice little card and
she said, 'If you think of doing a Life Cycle 4, why don't you do it for children's brain
tumour research?' So that's exactly what we're going to do. Not just 1100 miles, 1400 miles
around the four corners of Great Britain. And we've set a target, a pretty ambitious
target of raising half a million pounds to support the Children's Brain Tumour Research
Centre. So that's what I'm going to do, I hope you'll support me in that, either by
supporting me or one of the other riders or the whole team. Or by coming along and engaging
in the community ride on the final day of the Life Cycle on August the 31st here at
University Park. Or by organising an event, anything you can do would be very welcome
because whatever we do collectively I am confident we'll make a difference through the children's
brain tumour research to actually provide a legacy that Sam and others can be proud of.