Diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas, a cancer that commonly strikes children between 8 and 10 years old, is an aggressive, inoperable, uncurable, 100 percent lethal brain cancer. Every year, between 200 and 400 children die from the cancer, which forms in the brain stem in an area called the pons and is impossible to operate on. Because of the cancer’s location, an effective dose of chemotherapy, radiation and most anything else can’t get to it.
Most children don’t live longer than a year after diagnosis.
Facing such terminal odds, 52 children from around the world and the country are seeking experimental treatment for the cancer in Mexico.
Read in this Wednesday’s Family section about one Washington family’s search for a cure for their 12-year-daughter.