In June 2009 Hannah Max was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, a childhood cancer of the sympathetic nervous system. Unusual for an 11 year old as this is generally found in much younger children. Since then Hannah has undergone all of the standard treatments for this disease including 6 rounds of chemotherapy, surgeries, stem cell transplant, and high dose chemo. She was also treated at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, U.S.A, where she received immunotherapy . Unfortunately, she could onlly receive a small amount of this important therapy, due to allergic reactions.

 

When we came back from Philadelphia, Hannah was doing really well. She had a great summer and fall (as did we all). Unfortunately routine scans showed she had relapsed at the beginning of December 2010. Although there is at this point no known cure for relapsed neuroblastoma, there are some new medicines, mostly still in the trial stage that have the potential to reduce the new tumors.

 

We were given the option to try a new chemotherapy combination called Totem (a combination of Topotecan and Temolozomide). After 2 rounds the recent scans have shown improvement.  We will do our best to keep you up to date about Hannah via the blog on this site.