Cancer therapy now free for kids

A NEW cancer treatment is giving hope to sick kids, with the radical therapy to be made free in Victoria.

The new therapy will be available at two Melbourne hospitals — the Royal Children’s Hospital and the Peter McCallum Cancer centre — the state and federal governments announced yesterday.

“These brave young people battling cancer will now be able to get the lifesaving therapy they need, without going overseas,” Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said.

Patients with blood cancer have been forced to travel overseas or find a clinical trial in order to access the chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, which supercharges the immune system.

It can cost around $500,000 per patient.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said it had already been used to treat seven young people in Victoria.

He said one Melbourne family had been forced to travel to the US to access the therapy.

Violet Uhi, 8, and her family flew to Seattle last year so she could access the lifesaving cancer treatment. Her leukaemia had relapsed and the therapy wasn’t yet available in Australia.

“It’s frightening not to know what is going to happen to your child,” mother Tess Uhi told reporters yesterday.

“Knowing that there’s no available treatment options in Australia that were effective enough for Violet was a really harrowing experience.”

Having the treatment available in Australia would ease the burden for other families, Ms Uhi said.

The new therapy will also be available to children interstate and the government was investigating whether it could be expanded to treat adults.