Annual Report 2017
Department of Pediatric Oncology
Toru Mukouhara, Ako Hosono
Introduction
The Department of Pediatric Oncology was established in December 2011 to provide treatment of pediatric cancers including a wide variety of diseases such as embryonal tumors comprising neuroblastomas, nephroblastomas, and hepatoblastomas, and mesenchymal tumors comprising Ewing sarcomas, rhabdomyosarcomas, and osteosarcomas. Although they usually occur in children under the age of 15, they occasionally occur in adolescents and young adults (AYA). Most of pediatric cancers are highly chemosensitive as well as radiosensitive. They are possibly curable in a certain situation where the intensity of multidisciplinary treatment and disease characteristics are balanced well. However, there are absolutely refractory cases that need new treatments other than standard chemotherapy. Moreover, long-term survivors of pediatric cancers often suffer from complications secondary to chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Our team and what we do
The pediatric outpatient service is open three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to treat newly diagnosed patients and patients who received chemotherapy in the outpatient setting, and to provide follow-up treatment for patients who have completed an intensive treatment course. The care for children receiving palliative treatment is also carried out with the Palliative Care and Psycho-Oncology group. Daily ward round and a conference are held every morning. We also attend conferences with the Departments of Breast and Medical Oncology, Musculoskeletal Oncology and Rehabilitation, Thoracic Surgery, and Urology at any time.
Research activities
Our projects include treatment development using relatively new off-label drugs as well as experimental agents such as peptide vaccines. One of the objectives of the following trials is gatheringdata on, and assessing the safety and efficacy date of, such off-label drugs and eventually getting them approved by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. Two clinical trials described below are currently active.
1) Randomized phase II study of two cross-over sequences, Gemcitabine/ docetaxel (A) andtemozolomide/etoposide (B), for relapsed or refractory Osteosarcoma
2) Phase I/II Study of Irinotecan and Gemcitabine in Pediatric, Adolescent and Young Adult Patients with Relapsed or Refractory Solid Tumors
Future prospects
There are three major missions in the Department of Pediatric Oncology of the National Cancer Center Hospital East (NCCHE) as follows.
1) To provide a state-of-the-art treatment for AYA patients in collaboration with the Medical Oncology group
2) To develop new treatments for pediatric cancer by sharing agents and knowledge with the Clinical Development Center
3) To provide less toxic proton-beam radiation therapy as one of the three proton centers for children in Japan
All three activities are currently in process and several projects have already started.
List of papers published in January 2017 - March 2018
Journal
1. Yamashita Y, Tanaka Y, Kono S, Nishimura M, Mukohara T, Morinaga Y, Hara S, Takao S. Effectiveness of Pertuzumab, Trastuzumab, and Docetaxel Combination Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy for HER2-Positive Inflammatory Breast Cancer: A Case Report. Breast care (Basel, Switzerland), 12:45-47, 2017
2. Matsubara N, Mukai H, Hosono A, Onomura M, Sasaki M, Yajima Y, Hashizume K, Yasuda M, Uemura M, Zurth C. Erratum to: Phase 1 study of darolutamide (ODM-201), a new-generation androgen receptor antagonist, in Japanese patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol, 80:1073-1077, 2017
3. Sasaki M, Izumi H, Yokoyama T, Kojima M, Hosono A. Follicular dendritic cell sarcoma treated with a variety of chemotherapy. Hematol Oncol, 35:905-908, 2017
4. Fukumoto T, Sakaguchi M, Oka M, Nishimura M, Mukohara T, Nishigori C. Malignant melanoma with bone marrow involvement diagnosed from hypercalcemia: Development of a neural cell adhesion molecule stain. J Dermatol, 44:e105-e106, 2017
5. Tsuchiya N, Hosono A, Yoshikawa T, Shoda K, Nosaka K, Shimomura M, Hara J, Nitani C, Manabe A, Yoshihara H, Hosoya Y, Kaneda H, Kinoshita Y, Kohashi K, Yoshimura K, Fujinami N, Saito K, Mizuno S, Nakatsura T. Phase I study of glypican-3-derived peptide vaccine therapy for patients with refractory pediatric solid tumors. Oncoimmunology, 7:e1377872, 2017
6. Matsubara N, Mukai H, Hosono A, Onomura M, Sasaki M, Yajima Y, Hashizume K, Yasuda M, Uemura M, Zurth C. Phase 1 study of darolutamide (ODM-201): a new-generation androgen receptor antagonist, in Japanese patients with metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol, 80:1063-1072, 2017
7. Mukai H, Kogawa T, Matsubara N, Naito Y, Sasaki M, Hosono A. A first-in-human Phase 1 study of epirubicin-conjugated polymer micelles (K-912/NC-6300) in patients with advanced or recurrent solid tumors. Invest New Drugs, 35:307-314, 2017