Four-year-old Michelle Lowry is all about learning her letters and numbers, but her parents didn’t know if they could count on seeing this day.
What they thought was a ting bug bite on Michelle’s neck turned out to be a tumor.
After a battery of tests, doctors at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles diagnosed Michelle with a soft tissue sarcoma.
Because of the location, surgery and radiation were ruled out. Doctors used a new precise cancer panel called OncoKids to read Michelle’s DNA and RNA. The panel revealed Michelle would be a perfect candidate for a targeted new drug, larotrectinib.
Doctors worked fast to get Michelle in a new clinical trial.
Two months later Michelle’s tumor had shrunk by 60%. Two years later the tumor is undetectable.
Based on other positive outcomes like Michelle’s, the FDA granted accelerated approval of larotrectinib.
OncoKids is the first cancer panel designed specifically for children’s cancers and can detect genetic alterations for pediatric cancers, including leukemia, solid tumors, sarcomas and brain tumors.
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