A Rose Against High Risk Cancer

As part of the Framework Agreement between our Foundation and Soleterre, the Implementation Agreement was signed on 15 September 2020 for the project entitled «A Rose Against High Risk Cancer», aimed at setting up a bone marrow transplant unit in Western Ukraine.

The Western Ukrainian Specialized Pediatric Medical Centre di Leopoli (WUSPMC) is a public hospital of the Lviv Regional Council. It is the most important care facility for pediatric oncology, oncohematology and neuro-oncology in Western Ukraine, a geographical area made up of seven regions with about 10 million inhabitants. Among the strategic objectives of WUSPMC is the development of a program for optimizing the treatment of high-risk cancer in children through the use of state-of-the-art techniques for the collection and transplantation of autologous stem cells and high-dose chemotherapy.

In September 2019 our Foundation positively reviewed the idea of supporting this program and in February 2020 the Department of Pediatric Oncology of WUSPMC defined a preliminary project called “A Rose Against High-Risk Cancer”.
In the following months, despite the lockdowns due to Covid-19, with the decisive contribution of Soleterre, the project engaged the services of Zaporuka (a Ukrainian NGO partner of Soleterre specialized in psycho-social support for families and children with cancer) and the Italian Association of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology (for training and remote supervision of colleagues in Ukraine).
The overall objective of the three-year ‘A Rose Against High-Risk Cancer’ project is to improve the treatment of high-risk cancer in children in Western Ukraine by exploiting state-of-the-art techniques for the collection and transplantation of autologous stem cells (ASCT) as well as high-dose chemotherapy.

The specific goal is to activate a bone marrow transplant unit at the WUSPMC.

To achieve these objectives, the project is designed to:

  • Provide the necessary state-of-the-art medical equipment and instruments.
  • Improve patient safety and increase the ability to perform ASCT treatments with state-of-the-art techniques.
  • Integrate standard multi-drug chemotherapy with use of megachemotherapy.
  • Promote the continuous and specialized training of medical and paramedical personnel in pediatric oncology, transferring skills and consulting with international centers.
  • Develop autologous stem cell transplantation techniques.
The project therefore intends to represent the main source for setting up a national Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) program for the transplantation of autologous stem cells for children in Western Ukraine..