Nottingham Life Cycle 7 – raising £500,000 for children’s brain tumour research
Each year, hundreds of children and their families are faced with the terrifying diagnosis of a brain tumour. In the UK alone, every week 10 children will find out that they have the disease.
Thanks to the belief and backing of our supporters, our Children's Brain Tumour Research Centre (CBTRC) has been at the forefront of leading edge research into this complex and devastating disease for the past 20 years.
To help celebrate this milestone, we are making this life-saving research the focus for Nottingham Life Cycle 7 - our annual fundraising campaign - which launched last week. Here's what happened on the day.
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The CBTRC has been at the forefront of examining and removing childhood brain tumours since the 1980s
Parents who understand the benefits of the work include Neenu Minhas, 45, and her husband Raman, 45. The family moved from Leicester to Nottingham to be nearer to the centre after their son Aiden was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive tumour when he was only two years old.
Aiden was always an active child until the couple realised that he was becoming more restless and was suffering from sickness. He was rushed to hospital where a scan found an aggressive tumour. Luckily it was removed, but Aiden is still undergoing treatment after doctors discovered two new lesions.
Raman said: “We were extremely lucky that Aiden’s tumour is an area of special interest for Professor Richard Grundy who is always willing to look beyond what is conventional and look at other options to choose a treatment protocol based on best current data.
“We are grateful every single day for what Mr Macarthur and Professor Grundy at the Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre have done for our family.”
More children die from brain tumours than any other form of cancer
At the launch Aiden was reunited with his surgeon Donald Macarthur, honorary clinical associate professor in neurosurgery at CBTRC.
“The centre was founded 20 years ago and now has a number of distinct but overlapping research groups with a very large number of staff. We have been very successful in driving down the time to diagnosis of children’s brain tumours through a programme over the past five years called Headsmart and we’re beginning to develop enhanced understanding of how we can treat children more safely and more effectively” said Donald.
"If you can pick up a child’s tumour when it’s smaller it’s far more likely that a surgeon like me will be able to remove it. Completely removing a tumour makes a difference to the chances of curing that child. Children who are diagnosed late are more likely to have symptoms due to damage within the brain. The nature of the nervous system is that you cannot reverse the damage once it’s happened.
“It's an exciting time for brain tumour research and we are delighted to have the support of The University of Nottingham through Nottingham Life Cycle 7. Down the years, the generosity and dedication of supporters and fundraisers has helped make a real difference to our research - and we don't want to stop now. It's exciting to think what we could achieve together, in 20 years time from now.”
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To help launch our £500,000 appeal, University Sports teams were also on hand to give the children fitness challenges as well as sports demonstrations. Thank you to everyone who took part in the launch - especially all the children and their families - you were great!
