Grupo Planeta promotes pediatric oncology research at IIS La Fe with a donation of 11,000 euros

Specifically, to the research project 'Towards precision medicine for children and adolescents with solid tumors in relapse/progression' developed by the Clinical and Translational Cancer Research Group at IIS La Fe and led by Dr. Adela Cañete Nieto.

The donation comes from a campaign of Grupo Planeta workers in Valencia that consists of a solidarity sale where employees can purchase books at a symbolic price in order to raise money for a solidarity project. The company doubles the workers' contribution and the total amount is destined to research projects on children's oncology.

This solidarity campaign started in Barcelona more than 7 years ago, was extended to the Madrid offices, and this last year has been inaugurated at the Valencia headquarters.

About the project

The aim of the project for which the donation will be used is to classify pediatric tumors in relapse/progression according to their genomic alterations in order to better understand the disease and improve the complex prognosis of these patients.

Cancer is the leading cause of disease-related mortality in children and adolescents. In recent years there has been a real revolution in the field of genomics, allowing the determination of the molecular profile of tumors. This new concept of personalized medicine is not only the future of oncology but a real present as has been demonstrated by several projects in adult tumors and recently in pediatric cancer.

Similar projects in pediatric cancer are already being carried out in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The IIS La Fe project is a pioneer in Spain and its results could be extended in the future from the Hospital La Fe to other Spanish centers. With this project, the IIS La Fe team hopes to demonstrate the applicability of personalized medicine in pediatric cancer.

Most patients will have genomic alterations in their tumors, but only some of them will have a specific drug for these therapeutic targets. In other words, only a fraction of patients will benefit from personalized treatment. However, the genomic data obtained and their correlation with other known variables can be very useful for the future design of the initial treatment of high-risk patients. This strategy will also facilitate the inclusion of pediatric patients in early clinical trials, prioritizing drugs with a known molecular target. The project will be open to the inclusion of patients from other national centers.