Inside Pediatrics Fall/Winter 2024

Hear more from Kutny about the Pediatric Clinical Trials Office on the Children’s of Alabama PEDSCAST

Children’s also performs bone marrow and stem cell transplants, which have proven life-saving for many patients. The stem cell transplant team offers CAR T-cell therapy, in which a patient’s own immune cells are taken into a lab and programmed to fight their cancer. “We’ve been able to offer that to some of the children of Alabama here who otherwise would have had to go through those very intensive treatments with chemotherapy and stem cell transplant,” Kutny said. “And they’ve been able to respond to these new cellular therapies, and it’s really amazing to see how well they tolerate the treatments, and it’s been a great success in our era of oncology.” A Promising Future Because of the efforts of Dhall and Kutny, Children’s now has one of the nation’s largest clinical trial programs in pediatric oncology and hematology. “I’ve been really blessed to be a part of this team that has seen extreme growth over the last five years,” Kutny said.

is actively expanding the number of consortia and partnerships with other hospitals. With cellular therapy and immunotherapy, they’re already offering an array of complicated, leading-edge trials. “We can offer, across a wide spectrum, the best clinical trials that are out there right here for patients in Alabama regardless of the type of disease that the patient is facing in oncology or hematology,” he said. “And that’s been great for the families of these patients to know that they come to Children’s of Alabama, and they’re receiving the very best care that can be offered.”

“ We can offer the best clinical trials that are out there… right here for patients in Alabama.

In the process, they’re contributing to research that can help develop more advanced treatments. “We are making an impact, not just locally, but nationally and globally,” Dhall added.

More growth may be coming. Kutny says the team

Just the way he envisioned it when he first arrived. ●

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