China Regional Program

Each year, about 50,000 children are diagnosed with cancer in China; about 12,000 of these children have acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). 

Prior to 2010, fewer than 30% of children with cancer in China received treatment, because individual families were required to shoulder the financial burden of therapy. Due to a collaboration between St. Jude and local partners in China, the number of children receiving treatment for cancer has skyrocketed. 

Regional Initiatives

The China Regional Program is a testament to partnerships formed in the country by St. Jude  through the decades to improve outcomes for children with cancer. 

The program encompasses a wide range of activities, including training physicians, nurses, data managers, statisticians, psychosocial experts and laboratory staff. The program also conducts collaborative translational research in partnership with Shanghai Children’s Medical Center, Beijing Children's Hospital, Tianjin Institute of Hematology and Blood Diseases Hospital, Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center, Children's Hospital of Soochow University and National Taiwan University Children’s Hospital in Taipei City.

Achievements in the Region

In 1991, St. Jude partnered with Shanghai Children’s Medical Center and Beijing Children’s Hospital to train physicians and nurses to treat children with ALL and to improve the institutions’ diagnostic capability. In 2005, St. Jude worked with the Partner in Hope Foundation (Hong Kong) to raise funding to treat underprivileged children with ALL.

To treat these patients, St. Jude, in collaboration with Shanghai Children’s Medical Center and Beijing Children’s Hospital, designed an effective and cost-efficient clinical trial. The clinical trial was a success: 86% of the more than 153 patients treated remained in continuous remission. This excellent result — at an affordable cost — was presented in an international journal and attracted the attention of the Chinese Ministry of Health. As a result, in 2010, childhood ALL was selected as one of the first three diseases covered by the New Rural Cooperative Medical Care Scheme, in which central and local governments provide health insurance to citizens with catastrophic diseases.

In addition, to provide optimal treatment to many patients, St. Jude worked with Shanghai Children’s Medical Center to establish the China National Childhood ALL Study Group, supported by the VIVA China Children’s Cancer Foundation. 

Since 2015, more than 15,000 patients with ALL have enrolled in two national clinical trials in 25 major hospitals and medical centers, which, together, cover 70% of the Chinese population. The first clinical trial has raised the survival rate to more than 90%, significantly improved the cure rate of Philadelphia chromosome-positive ALL with dasatinib, and successfully reduced the use of dexamethasone and vincristine pulse therapy, thereby improving the quality of life for patients. Recently, a highly effective chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy was developed.

In 2017, the Chinese government approved the creation of the first National Children’s Medical Center, which St. Jude had proposed. Shanghai Children’s Medical Center and St. Jude are developing a framework for cancer treatment, training and research for the center which is scheduled to open in 2024. 

In 2018, the Pediatric Leukemia Cancer Registry, the first comprehensive national cancer registry in China, was initiated to collect data on demographics, disease subtypes and treatment outcomes for all children newly diagnosed with leukemia, both prospectively and retrospectively, back to 2015. 

To further strengthen research on childhood cancer and blood diseases in China, St. Jude Global staff are forming partnerships with two other outstanding institutions in China: the Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center and the Tianjin Institute of Hematology and Blood Diseases Hospital.

Contact 

To learn more about the China program, contact sjglobalchina@stjude.org.