Sandra Luna-Fineman

Children's Hospital Colorado · Pediatrics School of Medicine University of Colorado

PURPOSE This study aimed to describe and assess the regional experience of a pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship program based in Guatemala. METHODS The Unidad Nacional de Oncología Pediátrica (UNOP) in Guatemala City, Guatemala, is the only hospital in Central America dedicated exclusively to childhood and adolescent cancer. To address the r...

Purpose Globally, disparities exist in retinoblastoma treatment outcomes between high- and low-income countries, but independent analysis of American countries is lacking. We report outcomes of American retinoblastoma patients and explore factors associated with survival and globe salvage. Design Subanalysis of prospective cohort study data. Method...

Despite being classified as a high-income country, Panama still faces challenges in providing care for children and adolescents with cancer. Annually, 170 new cases of childhood cancer are diagnosed in Panama, and the survival rate is around 60%. To improve this, the establishment of a Pediatric Cancer Commission comprised of healthcare professiona...

The Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer (GICC) aims to increase the cure rate for children with cancer globally by improving healthcare access and quality. The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (St. Jude), and collaborators have joined efforts to improve outcomes of children with cancer in Latin Ameri...

Retinoblastoma is highly curable, with event-free survival (EFS) of greater than 95% in high-income countries. However, in lower middle-income countries, outcomes of EFS are 30%-60% due to delayed diagnosis and lack of resources resulting in extra-ocular disease. We report the toxicity profile and outcomes of intensified therapy for advanced retino...

Background: The ongoing coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) pandemic strained medical systems worldwide. We report on the impact on pediatric oncology care in Latin American (LATAM) during its first year. Method: Four cross-sectional surveys were electronically distributed among pediatric onco-hematologists in April/June/October 2020, and April/...

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic strained medical systems worldwide. We report on the impact on pediatric oncology care in Latin American (LATAM) during its first year. Four cross-sectional surveys were electronically distributed among pediatric onco-hematologist in April/June/October 2020, and April/2021 through the Latin American Society of Pediatri...

Wilms tumour (WT) is a childhood embryonal tumour that is paradigmatic of the intersection between disrupted organogenesis and tumorigenesis. Many WT genes play a critical (non-redundant) role in early nephrogenesis. Improving patient outcomes requires advances in understanding and targeting of the multiple genes and cellular control pathways now i...

On behalf of the Global Retinoblastoma Study Group © The Author(s) 2021 OBJECTIVE: To investigate in a large global sample of patients with retinoblastoma whether sex predilection exists for this childhood eye cancer. METHODS: A cross-sectional analysis including 4351 treatment-naive retinoblastoma patients from 153 countries who presented to 278 t...

Objective To investigate in a large global sample of patients with retinoblastoma whether sex predilection exists for this childhood eye cancer. Methods A cross-sectional analysis including 4351 treatment-naive retinoblastoma patients from 153 countries who presented to 278 treatment centers across the world in 2017. The sex ratio (male/female) in...

The COVID-19 pandemic poses an unprecedented health crisis in all socio-economic regions across the globe. While the pandemic has had a profound impact on access to and delivery of health care by all services, it has been particularly disruptive for the care of patients with life-threatening noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) such as the treatment of...

The COVID‐19 pandemic quickly led to an abundance of publications and recommendations, despite a paucity of information on how COVID‐19 affects children with cancer. This created a dire need for a trusted resource with curated information and a space for the pediatric oncology community to share experiences. The Global COVID‐19 Observatory and Reso...

Cancers arising from germline DNA mismatch-repair or polymerase-proofreading deficiencies (MMRD and PPD) in children harbour the highest mutational and microsatellite insertion/deletion (MS-indel) burden in humans and are lethal due to inherent resistance to chemo-irradiation. Although immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICI) have failed to benefit child...

Pediatric brain tumors with replication repair deficiency (RRD) are hypermutant and may respond to immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI). We performed a consortium registry study of ICI in recurrent RRD cancers. Clinical and companion biomarkers were collected longitudinally on all patients. Biomarkers included tumor mutational burden (TMB), neoantige...

The COVID‐19 pandemic is one of the most serious global challenges to delivering affordable and equitable treatment to children with cancer we have witnessed in the last few decades. This Special Report aims to summarize general principles for continuing multidisciplinary care during the SARS‐CoV‐2 (COVID‐19) pandemic. With contributions from the l...

The COVID‐19 pandemic is one of the most serious global challenges to delivering affordable and equitable treatment to children with cancer we have witnessed in the last few decades. This Special Report aims to summarize general principles for continuing multidisciplinary care during the SARS‐CoV‐2 (COVID‐19) pandemic. With contributions from the l...

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most serious global challenges to delivering affordable and equitable treatment to children with cancer we have witnessed in the last few decades. This Special Report aims to summarise general principles for continuing multi-disciplinary care during the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. With contributions from the...

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most serious global challenges to delivering affordable and equitable treatment to children with cancer we have witnessed in the last few decades. This Special Report aims to summarise general principles for continuing multi-disciplinary care during the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. With contributions from the...

Purpose: Treatment abandonment because of enucleation refusal is a limitation of improving outcomes for children with retinoblastoma in countries with limited resources. Furthermore, many children present with buphthalmos and a high risk of globe rupture during enucleation. To address these unique circumstances, the AHOPCA II protocol introduced n...

Pediatric brain tumors with replication repair deficiency (RRD) are hypermutant and may respond favorably to immune checkpoint inhibition (ICI). We are collecting ongoing clinical and molecular data from patients with RRD hypermutant cancers treated with ICI as a part of our consortium registry study. Companion biomarkers include tumor mutational b...

Purpose The global burden of cancer is slated to reach 21.4 million new cases in 2030 alone, and the majority of those cases occur in under-resourced settings. Formidable changes to health care delivery systems must occur to meet this demand. Although significant policy advances have been made and documented at the international level, less is know...

Purpose: Tumor associated macrophages (TAM) in malignant tumors have been linked to tumor aggressiveness and represent a new target for cancer immunotherapy. As new TAM-targeted immunotherapies are entering clinical trials, it is important to detect and quantify TAM with non-invasive imaging techniques. The purpose of this study was to determine i...

Many children with cancer in low- and middle-income countries are treated in hospitals lacking key infrastructure, including diagnostic capabilities, imaging modalities, treatment components, supportive care, and personnel. Childhood cancer treatment regimens adapted to local conditions provide an opportunity to cure as many children as possible wi...

To develop a positron emission tomography (PET)/magnetic resonance (MR) imaging protocol for evaluation of the brain, heart, and joints of pediatric cancer survivors for chemotherapy-induced injuries in one session. Materials and Methods: Three teams of experts in neuroimaging, cardiac imaging, and bone imaging were tasked to develop a 20-30-minute...

Objectives: Corticosteroid treatment of paediatric leukaemia patients can lead to osteonecrosis (ON). We determined whether bone marrow oedema (BME) is an early sign of progressive ON and eventual bone collapse. Methods: In a retrospective study, two radiologists reviewed MR imaging characteristics of 47 early stage epiphyseal ON in 15 paediatri...

Purpose: To provide clinically useful gadolinium-free whole-body cancer staging of children and young adults with integrated positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance (PET/MR) imaging in less than 1 h. Procedures: In this prospective clinical trial, 20 children and young adults (11-30 years old, 6 male, 14 female) with solid tumors underwe...

Background: Treatment refusal and abandonment are major causes of treatment failure for children with cancer in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), like Guatemala. This study identified risk factors for and described the intervention that decreased abandonment. Methods: This was a retrospective study of Guatemalan children (0-18 years) wit...

57a Purpose A significant percentage of patients in Central America present with buphthalmos, carrying a high risk of globe rupture and orbital contamination. In 2007, AHOPCA introduced chemotherapy before enucleation in children with buphthalmos. Methods Patients with advanced intraocular disease were considered standard-risk and underwent enucl...

59 Background Abandonment of therapy is a major cause of therapeutic failure in the treatment of childhood cancer in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC). This study examines factors associated with increased risk of therapy abandonment in Guatemalan children with cancer and the rates of therapy abandonment before and after implementation of a m...

Pediatric-type follicular lymphoma and pediatric marginal zone lymphoma are two of the rarest B-cell lymphomas. These lymphomas occur predominantly in the pediatric population and show features distinct from their more common counterparts in adults: adult-type follicular lymphoma and adult-type nodal marginal zone lymphoma. Here we report a detaile...

Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the safety profile of ferumoxytol as an intravenous magnetic resonance imaging contrast agent in children. Materials and methods: We prospectively evaluated the safety of ferumoxytol administrations as an "off-label" contrast agent for magnetic resonance imaging in nonrandomized phase 4 clinical tri...

Methods: First, we compared the diagnostic accuracy of pre-contrast T2-weighted fast spin echo (FSE), diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) and T1-weighted MR scans with post-contrast gadolinium chelate enhanced T1-weighted MR scans for the evaluation of 14 diagnostic criteria in 119 pediatric patients with primary and secondary tumors. We next fused (...

Effective treatment of children with medulloblastoma requires a functioning multi-disciplinary team with adequate neurosurgical, neuroradiological, pathological, radiotherapy and chemotherapy facilities and personnel. In addition the treating centre should have the capacity to effectively screen and manage any tumour and treatment-associated compli...

Outcomes have improved for pediatric patients undergoing autologous bone marrow transplantation for refractory or relapsed Hodgkin Lymphoma.•Cyclophosphamide, Carmustine (BCNU), and etoposide (VP-16) is an appropriate therapy for patients <21 years old with relapsed or refractory Hodgkin Lymphoma.•Post-transplantation consolidative radiation therap...

Objective To evaluate the practice of empiric antibiotics for febrile, nonneutropenic pediatric oncology patients with a central venous catheter (CVC) in place. Study design Episodes of fever without neutropenia (absolute neutrophil count [ANC] ≥500 cells/mm3) were reviewed retrospectively in pediatric oncology patients with a CVC undergoing chemo...

Imaging tests are essential for staging of children with cancer. However, CT and radiotracer-based imaging procedures are associated with substantial exposure to ionising radiation and risk of secondary cancer development later in life. Our aim was to create a highly effective, clinically feasible, ionising radiation-free staging method based on wh...

Retinoblastoma remains incurable in many regions of the world. The major obstacles to cure are delayed diagnosis, poor treatment compliance, and lack of evidence-based recommendations for clinical management. Although enucleation is curative for intraocular disease, in developing countries retinoblastoma is often diagnosed after the disease has dis...

718 Hodgkin Lymphoma (HL) is highly curable with reported event-free survival (EFS) estimates of greater than 80% even in high-risk patients. Unfortunately, EFS of HL in low-income countries is much lower, about 50%. The Asociación de Hemato-Oncología Pediátrica de Centro América (AHOPCA) is a collaborative group that designs therapeutic guidelines...

The term developing countries refers to nations with relatively low per capita income, usually poorly industrialized societies lacking basic services for health and sanitation with widespread poverty and low literacy rates. Access to health care is limited in these societies. This term has been criticized and alternatives like, “less developed coun...

Involvement of the falx cerebri in infants with stage 4 neuroblastoma is thought to be rare. The falx is derived from the neural crest and thus may be a location for primary neuroblastoma. Its propensity for metastasis is unknown. Management of neuroblastoma in this location is potentially challenging. We describe two children less than 18 months o...

Retinoblastoma, a curable eye tumor, is associated with poor survival in Central America (CA). To develop a retinoblastoma program in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, twinning initiatives were undertaken between local pediatric oncology centers, nonprofit foundations, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and the University of Tennessee Hamil...

About 250-300 children with newly diagnosed cancer are treated each year at the Unidad Nacional de Oncologia Pediatrica in Guatemala City; less than 5% of them have soft tissue sarcomas (STS). The aim of the article was to evaluate whether the therapeutic standards achieved in STS in developed countries could be reproduced in a low-income country....

CCG-2961 incorporated 3 new agents, idarubicin, fludarabine and interleukin-2, into a phase 3 AML trial using intensive-timing remission induction/consolidation and related donor marrow transplantation or high-dose cytarabine intensification. Among 901 patients under age 21 years, 5-year survival was 52%, and event-free survival was 42%. Survival i...

The difference in survival for children diagnosed with cancer between high- and low-income countries (LIC) continues to widen as curative therapies are developed in the former but not implemented in the latter. In 1996, the Monza International School of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology (MISPHO) was founded in an attempt to narrow this survival gap. Du...

More than 20 patients with persistent poliovirus infections have been identified and reported to WHO. To date, almost all of these patients have had B-cell immune deficiency disorders. Since there are limited data on patients with HIV infection who have received oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), we studied adults and children to determine if persons w...

CCG-2961 tested an intensively timed induction therapy consisting of cytarabine (AC), etoposide, thioguanine, dexamethasone, idarubicin and daunorubicin. Patients in remission after induction were randomized to a second induction course (Arm A) or a 3-drug combination of fludarabine, AC, and idarubicin (Arm B). Course 3 for patients with related do...

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and myeloproliferative syndromes (MPS) of childhood are a heterogeneous group of clonal disorders of hematopoiesis with overlapping clinical features and inconsistent nomenclature. Although a number of genetic conditions have been associated with MDS and MPS, the overall contribution of inherited predispositions is u...

Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and myeloproliferative syndromes (MPS) of childhood are a heterogeneous group of clonal disorders of hematopoiesis with overlapping clinical features and inconsistent nomenclature. Although a number of genetic conditions have been associated with MDS and MPS, the overall contribution of inherited predispositions is u...