The Turnbull Government will provide $5 million to ensure all Australian children with high risk brain cancer have access to life-saving clinical trials and genetic testing.
The Government’s $105 million Australian Brain Cancer Mission will provide the funding to boost the Zero Childhood Cancer initiative. We are able to provide this funding boost to health and medical research because of our stronger economy.
The funding will mean more than 200 children - around 50 every year - with high risk brain cancer will now be included in the program from right across Australia.
The Turnbull Government is committed to improving survival rates and outcomes for both children and adults with brain cancer.
This is about giving each and every child the best possible chance at a better life.
Children with high risk brain cancers will receive genomic and biologic testing on their cancer cells, to help identify the drugs most likely to attack and treat their specific cancer.
Scientists and doctors will work collaboratively to identify and deliver the most effective treatment plan, specifically tailored to suit each child’s individual disease.
The funding will be used to fast track access to targeted treatments through a range of new national and international clinical trials.
This means Australian children will be able to access the very latest research from around the world, providing unique treatments and medicines to help save the lives of some of our sickest children.
The establishment and integration of a routine immunoprofiling platform into the Zero Childhood Cancer Program will allow a child’s tumour to be profiled to indicate whether they are candidates for ground breaking immunotherapy trials.
These personalised treatments for children with high risk brain cancer offer the greatest possible chance of survival and the highest quality of life.
All eight Australian children’s hospitals will be involved in the Zero Childhood Brain Cancer initiative including Children’s Hospital Westmead, Sydney Children’s Hospital and John Hunter Children’s Hospital in New South Wales.
As well as Perth Children’s Hospital, Women and Children’s Hospital in South Australia, Royal Children’s Hospital and Monash Children’s Hospital in Victoria and Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Queensland.
Every year in Australia the equivalent of a class of children die from brain cancer.
The five-year survival rate for brain cancer is just 22 per cent and this rate has not improved for the past 30 years.
The Turnbull Government committed $20 million to the world-leading Zero Childhood Cancer initiative last year.
It brings together a national network of hospitals, research centres and clinicians across Australia and is led by the Children’s Cancer Institute and The Kids Cancer Centre at Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick.
The funding for Zero Childhood Brain Cancer has been made available through the Government’s investment in the Australian Brain Cancer Mission.
The Mission aims to double survival rates and improve the quality of life of people living with brain cancer over the next 10 years, with the longer term aim of defeating brain cancer.
The Mission is a partnership between the Turnbull Government, philanthropists, researchers and clinicians, patients and their families.
We have guaranteed Medicare to support healthcare for every Australian and are investing more in public hospitals than ever before. Under our new agreement we will deliver more than $30 billion in additional public hospital funding, with funding increasing for every state and territory, every year.
This is record funding that will deliver more doctors, more nurses and importantly more services.