CWS Supporting Organisations and Funding
Since 1982, the Förderkreis krebskranke Kinder e.V. Stuttgart has been flexibly and quickly helping children and young people with cancer and their families in Stuttgart and the region during treatment and afterwards.
With the Blue House, the association offers families of children with cancer a temporary home where parents and siblings can live and recharge their batteries during the treatment of the young patients in the immediate vicinity of the Olgahospital.
The n:ipo counseling center provides individual counseling and group services to help families with all aspects of aftercare following the end of intensive therapy.
The Förderkreis optimizes the care of young patients in the hospital by providing extensive support for the pediatric oncology ward at the Olgahospital in Stuttgart, e.g. by financing additional pedagogical and psychological specialists, toys and handicraft materials for the playroom, and extensive medical projects.
The direct financial support provided by the Family Fund helps unbureaucratically and quickly when families are in economic hardship due to the child's illness (e.g. due to loss of earnings or additional costs caused by the illness).
www.foerderkreis-krebskranke-kinder.de
The majority of children and adolescents with cancer in Germany can currently be cured. Overall, around 85 percent of patients in Germany currently survive the disease for at least five years. For some forms of cancer, the figure is as high as 90 percent. Among physicians, the five-year period is a common figure that corresponds to a long-term cure for most young patients.
Experts also attribute this success to the fact that almost all cancers in children and adolescents are now treated in clinical trials. However, "study" here does not automatically mean that only new procedures are tested on children. Often these are so-called therapy optimization studies and also register studies: this means that all young patients receive the best treatment in each case according to uniform standards and that this data is collected and evaluated. These evaluations can then be used to further improve these therapies.
Stuttgart has been the central site of the COSS study (Cooperative OsteoSarcoma Study Group) since 2005 and the site of the CWS study (Cooperative Weichteilsarkom Studiengruppe) since 1989. The study center is usually located at the site of the respective study director, who is determined by a vote of the GPOH (German Society for Pediatric Oncology and Hematology).
After the previous study director Prof. Dr. Ewa Koscielniak left after many years, the result of the new election was clear in February 2021: the study headquarters of the international CWS will remain in Stuttgart. The CWS team around the new study director Prof. Dr. M. Sparber-Sauer was able to assert itself against strong university competitors from Berlin, Bern and Munich/Freiburg. In scientific cooperation with the university hospitals in Tübingen, Frankfurt and Heidelberg, Stuttgart now remains the location of the study center and thus forms one of the three worldwide focal points for soft tissue sarcomas alongside Utrecht and Seattle.
The Förderkreis krebskranke Kinder e.V. Stuttgart makes a significant contribution to the existence of the study centers (see graphic). In addition to funding staff positions, this year it also covered the costs of developing a new website and assisted in the preparation of grant applications.
The financial support of these projects is only possible thanks to the extensive support of donors. Further information on the study centers as well as details on funding opportunities for this forward-looking work can be obtained from the office.
Reducing Treatment Burdens: The Liquid Biopsy Project Moves Forward
Numerous projects, such as the current Liquid Biopsy Project, and studies on bone and soft tissue cancer are carried out at the Olgahospital, often also in cooperation with other national and international scientists. Due to the comprehensive expertise in the treatment of bone and soft tissue sarcomas and the reference and consulting activities within the framework of the CWS and COSS studies, the department has a very special status nationwide and offers an excellent unique selling point for the hospital, especially as a point of contact for children and adolescents with cancer from the Stuttgart region.
Liquid Biopsy
Since 2018, the sponsoring group has been investing around €70,000 per year in the very promising and forward-looking accompanying project of CWS (Cooperative Weichteilsarkom Studiengruppe). The aim is to establish a procedure for non-invasive tumor and progression diagnostics in childhood soft tissue sarcomas.
What is Liquid Biopsy?
The technique of "Liquid Biopsy" (liquid biopsy) makes it possible to detect information about a cancer in the blood or also in other body fluids.
What is the advantage of the procedure?
With this modern procedure, it is possible to determine the "genetic signature" of the tumor in a blood sample, without having to perform a tumor tissue biopsy. In this way, the burden on patients caused by surgical procedures, anesthesia and bone marrow punctures can be significantly reduced. Whether this is also possible in young patients suffering from soft tissue sarcoma is being investigated in the current project.
Being sick isn’t easy – and it is especially hard if it is your child who is sick. In this situation, the Olgahospital provides a ray of hope for parents and children. Stuttgart’s only children’s hospital is one of the biggest and oldest children’s clinics in Germany.
In this pediatric center in the state capital of Stuttgart, highly qualified head physicians and assistant physicians along with a highly motivated team take care of the very young personally. Seriously ill children from throughout the region and all of Germany are patients here. Annually, more than 16,000 children and young people are treated here as in-patients and more than 100,000 as out-patients.
The aim of the Olgäle-Foundation, which has been supporting the clinic for 25 years now, is to help sick children and their parents. The foundation’s activities begin where the city and state run up against financial limits. The friendly interior design of the entrance with a huge Noah ́s ark, the colorful walls and waiting areas and the play corners help families forget to some extent the hospital surroundings. The Foundation also promotes the psycho-social care for our little patients and their parents. Compassionate psychologists, social educators and a kindergarten teacher attend to psychological recovery. A doctor and two nurses are employed for treatment at home for children with cancer or chronic diseases. Six clowns regularly visit the Olgahospital because laughter is truly good medicine. Music therapy in the neonatal intensive care unit and riding therapy for children with psychological illnesses along with theater for children with chronic pain help to accelerate convalescence.
The Olgäle-Foundation has set up a patient’s library which is managed by volunteers. Other volunteers visit the sick children when the parents are unable to stay at their bedside all the time. If the hospital cannot afford new equipment for diagnosis or treatment, the Foundation helps. This helps support treatment, reduce pain, and assist recovery.
The Foundation supports the training center STUPS financially, providing emergency training for doctors, nursing staff and paramedics, along with other training for the staff. For parents there is free counselling in all areas relevant to small children. Cancer research is also supported in the form of partial financial support for a researcher.
The Olgäle-Foundation has planned a great number of projects. To be able to realize these projects, the Foundation depends on support in the future as well. Many donations are necessary so that our little patients continue to have the best chances for recovery.
We look forward to hearing from you via e-mail at info@olgaele-stiftung.de or by telephone at Tel. +49 711 27873976.
Donations account:
Olgäle-Stiftung für das kranke Kind e.V.
BW-Bank Stuttgart
IBAN DE 22 6005 0101 0002 2665 50
BIC SOLADEST600
Scientist in Soft Tissue Sarcoma diagnostics and research
A fundamental part in therapeutic decisions in oncology are genetic changes of tumor cells, their genetic markers. The genetic background of tumors is gaining ever more importance. In the Molecular Biology Lab of the division Pediatrics 5 (Oncology, Hematlogy and Immunology) at Olgahospital, Klinikum Stuttgart, the genetic marker diagnostic is offered for patients suffering from Soft Tissue Sarcoma. Tumor material is collected in high quality in the CWS tumorbank in Stuttgart. Furthermore the lab works on research projects concerning the molecular characterization of Soft Tissue Sarcoma and Liquid Biopsy, also in cooperation with national and international partners in order to get new insights into cancer genesis and find new diagnostic and therapeutic options to improve chances of healing. The Molecular Biology Lab was founded in 1999, built up and since then is under scientific leadership of the biologist Dr. Sabine Stegmaier, whose position funding is sponsored by the Olgäle- Foundation since the beginning.
The molecular biology laboratories are supported by the Olgaele Stiftung and we thank for all this precious support.
The European Soft Tissue Sarcoma Registry SoTiSaR and the new Registry SoTiSaR 2.0 are sponsored by the Deutsche Kinderkrebsstiftung.
We are very thankful for this valuable support.
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