Oncothon: Pediatric Oncology and Hematology with Hiroki Hori, Ching-Tien Peng, Feng-Ming (Spring) Kong

Oncothon is a telethon spanning 24 hours, dedicated to gathering donations for childhood cancer research. 

In this episode, Dr. Hiroki Hori, Feng-Ming (Spring) Kong, and Ching-Tien Peng will share their thoughts about challenges, difficulties, and successes in pediatric hematology and oncology. ,

Speakers

Feng-Ming (Spring) Kong, MD, PhD, is a Clinical Professor and holds multiple leadership roles at HKU Shen-Zhen Hospital, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong. She serves as the Director of the Imaging and Blood Biomarker Group, Director of the Thoracic Oncology Center, and Deputy Director of the Cancer Center.

Previously, she led thoracic radiation oncology research and held positions such as Director of Clinical Research, Chair of the Radiation Oncology Department, and Associate Director of the Cancer Center.

Professor Kong has also held leadership positions in professional organizations, including serving as the President of the American Association for Women Radiologists Radiation Oncologists.

She is recognized as the founding President of the Sino-American Network of Radiation Oncology (SANTRO) and the inaugural Chair of the SANTRO Board of Directors.

Additionally, she chairs the WHO STAR Oncology Guidelines Assessment Commission at the WHO Collaborating Centre and holds the presidency of the Global Cancer Collaborative Group (GCOG).

Dr. Hiroki Hori holds the position of Professor at the Graduate School of Medicine, Mie University in Tsu, Japan, and is an active member of the Japanese Society of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology. 

He has dedicated over 30 years to pediatric hematology/oncology practice, emphasizing human resource development, social support for pediatric cancer patients and their families, and pharmacological translational research. 

Dr. Hori’s commitment extends globally, as he has collaborated with the Japan International Cooperation Agency in medical assistance efforts in resource-limited African countries.

He is actively contributing his expertise to the WHO Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer as a member of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP).

Ching-Tien Peng, a distinguished figure in pediatric hematology-oncology, serves as a Professor at China Medical University’s Children’s Hospital and also holds a Professorship in Biotechnology at Asia University.

He assumes the role of President at the Taiwan Society on Thrombosis and Hemostasis. Prof. Peng’s expertise lies in benign hematology, with a particular focus on thalassemias and hemophilias. He has previously held the position of Superintendent at the Children’s Hospital of China Medical University.

Moderator

Gevorg Tamamyan is the Editor-in-chief of OncoDaily, Head of the Pediatric Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Armenia, Chairman and Professor of the Department of Hematology and Pediatric Oncology at Yerevan State Medical University, Dr. Tamamyan has also been elected as the President of SIOP Asia 2024 and the Pediatric Oncology East and Mediterranean (POEM) Group.

00:00 Introduction
5:31 Feng-Ming (Spring) Kong
15:25 Hiroki Hori
18:47 Ching-Tieng Peng

The Transcript of Oncothon: Pediatric Oncology and Hematology with Hiroki Hori, Ching-Tien Peng, Feng-Ming (Spring) Kong

Gevorg Tamamyan: Hi again everyone and welcome back to the Global Oncothon by OncoDaily. As you know, we are doing this for 24 hours and we started almost one and a half hour ago and we are continuing. We have distinguished guests from all over the world, oncologists, families, survivors, fighters, foundations and now it’s my great honor to welcome here three distinguished guests from Taiwan, Japan, and China.

So first of all I would like to give just short intros for our distinguished speakers and then we’ll go ahead with our short session. First, I’d like to introduce Professor Ching-Tien Peng, my dearest mentor from Taiwan, who I haven’t seen for several months and great to see all of you first of all here. Professor Peng is a pediatric hematologist- oncologist who specializes in mostly benign hematology, is the past president of the Taiwan Society of Thrombosis and Hemostasis and he is a professor of pediatrics and hematology oncology at China Medical University and professor of biotechnology at Asia University.

He is also the former superintendent of Children’s Hospital of China Medical University and always when I’m talking about Professor Peng I say that because of him Taiwan for me became my second home. So thank you Professor Peng for being with us today.

Next I would like to introduce Professor Hiroki Hori, the president of SIOP Asia. Professor Hori, as I mentioned, is the continental president of the International Society of Pediatric Oncologists Asian chapter and he’s a professor at Graduate School of Medicine at Mie University in Tsu, Japan, is the former chair of the International Committee of the Japanese Society of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology and he has been working for Japan Children’s Cancer Group, the first nationwide study group for childhood cancer in Japan launched in 2014.

He has also joined the International Medical Corporation with limited countries in Africa as an expert of Japan International Cooperation Agency and has a strong will to contribute to WHO global initiative for childhood cancer as a member of SIOP. Thank you very much Professor Hori for being with us and next I’d like to introduce Professor Feng Ming (Spring) Kong.

Professor Kong is a master in clinical trial design and data analysis. She’s an American Board Certified Radiation Oncologist, Fellow of the American College of Radiology, Fellow of the American Association of Women Radiologists and Fellow of American Society of Radiation Oncology. She’s a clinical professor, Director of Imaging and Blood Biomarker Group, Director of Thoracic Oncology Center and Deputy Cancer Center Director at Hong Kong University Shen-Zhen Hospital, Li-Kan Shing Faculty of Medicine, the University of Hong Kong.

Professor Kong is a graduate of Radiation Oncology Residency Program from the Washington University in St. Louis and also had Radiation Oncology Residency Training from Shanghai Cancer Hospital, Fudan University and Postdoctoral Training at Duke University. Thank you very much Professor Kong and thank you very much everyone for being with us here.

I would like to ask our guests and honorary speakers to turn on their cameras before they do. You are coming from different countries, from different backgrounds, but I mean we are working in the same field , and you know, today we organized this global Oncothon dedicated to pediatric cancer and drug discovery and to support pediatric cancer research, because the field is really lacking and kind of pediatric cancer drug development is not a priority in the global agenda and we’re trying to bring this there.

I’d like to know your perspective first of all about the situation of pediatric oncology in your countries and second about the initiative and about your ideas on how we can move forward with this.

Thank you very much. I think ladies first, let’s give the floor to Professor Kong and then Professor Hori. Okay, thank you.

Feng-Meng (Spring) Kong: Thank you for having me. It’s my honor and the pleasure to share my thoughts on pediatric oncology, very important. As you mentioned, actually I practiced in the US for 20 years as a radiation oncologist, also practiced in China, now Mainland China and Hong Kong, China for almost like more than five years. So I have seen both east and the west side of the world.

One thing I feel like really burning for pediatric oncology is clinical trial, clinical research in each country, in China. You know, when I was in US, like almost every patient treated in clinical trial COG and I learned the learning of, you know, advancement of a treatment such as a Wilms tumor. I treated like every step, you know, every change of regimens associated with a very well-designed, very clearly designed trial.

But in China, almost no such trial. There are few people we are trying to, you know, as the president of China American Network, funding president of China American Network of Radiation Oncology. So we are trying to introduce the west, you know, clinical trial concept into China. Find out also the talents are very limited in China, not only research clinical trial limited.

And I think this is something, I think it’s really burning ,you need a lot of investment and a lot of trial. And the US have more than 50 years history, actually talking about almost 150 year history in clinical trial has funded by government. However, in China, in Hong Kong, China, zero, zero year government trained. And luckily, interestingly, actually, it’s really great news now, Chinese government are starting to support clinical trial organization.

Hong Kong government has just decided to invest 6 billion building a clinical trial institute, which is really important for the all together in medicine. But the pediatric has not been brought onto the table of full priority. I think it’s, you know, clinical trial in pediatric group are important. And also myself being very lucky that supported by Shen-Zhen government, the mainland China Shen-Zhen government for building clinical trial platform that about $30 million from the Shen-Zhen government, probably the first trial ever in China supported by some kind of a government organization. But also a little bit embarrassing, we have not put a lot of effort upon pediatric oncology.

I do have a friend, our current president of China American Network of Radiation Oncology, who is pediatric oncology, actually expert in practicing as professor in University of Nebraska. I think we were discussing about effort in China, in Hong Kong, Beijing, and we’ll have a meeting, probably focus on clinical trial oncology, pediatric oncology end of this year in Hong Kong. So clinical trial, clinical trial, we need to support. Drug company, technology company, you know, also very important and that drug is important for me.

Technology is also very important. There’s so many advanced technology, including AI and radiation, a lot of precision radiation technology that has been widely extensively researched in adult cancer, like a stereotactic body radiation, but has limited support doing, you know, clinical trial at the same time for the advanced technology, for example. But I think a proton, we’re getting a lot of proton for radiation therapy that can decrease doses to normal tissue, which is very important.

But I think we have more than proton. We have, you know, proton is a very expensive, very expensive machine and with limited skilled technologists to use it. If you don’t know how to use it, even you have good machine, then it’s not going to be very helpful. I think we need the training talent, but importantly, I think we need to use the available, like a linear accelerator, precision radiation therapy.

One thing I’m focusing in our big group as a priority is immune sparing precision radiation therapy. You know, every piece of normal tissue are very important to protect, particularly for pediatric. You know, the radiation damage to the lymphocyte, to the blood, people do not have, not pay attention that we, in our group, our research find out that it’s critically important, not only for tumor control, but more importantly, for survival quality of life. And this is almost zero research in pediatric oncology. We need to really learn.

We need to learn, I think, into a clinical trial, we need to get every patient into trial. What I mean, the clinical trial is not only for treatment trial, collecting data, observational study, it’s also clinical study. So you collect every information possible, build a big data, because the pediatric, it’s rare cancer in another way. That’s another reason that it’s rare. It’s not so common. That’s why we are, you know, kind of being neglected.

So I think we need to, first of all, I think most important, collect data, every patient you treat. You ask every patient in clinical trial, in some kind of treatment trial, but if we don’t have time, don’t have money to do the trial first, why don’t we collect all the information? And we actually have a trial open that we can collect the information, not only treatment, tumor treatment outcome, but also treatment toxicity, quality of life.

Another thing, as you mentioned, I’m most excited about, I think most important for pediatric as well, imaging biomarker, blood marker is something minimally invasive. We can collect them, like even CBC, lymphocyte, subtyping, those kind of simple things you can do in daily practice. We collect them, get all the data together, and build a bank of data.

And then we’re learning from this, the final priority, you know, find something that is better, you know, not only better, more precision, better, I think better, faster, and cheaper as well. Better, faster, cheaper, using all the technology possible. We have a lot, a lot, but we don’t have time to work on that. S

o I’m so glad that you guys are working on this, get a global effort, you know, get a global aspect, you know, put together from every field, get best of best for our children, our future, really our future. We can do better. We have a lot to do. Thank you.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Thank you very much, Professor Kong. Thank you very much for bringing also the perspective on the clinical trials, the importance of clinical trials, and I totally agree with your comments about it. And also, it’s great to hear your perspective as a radiation oncologist who has been practicing in different settings, both in like resource-rich settings, like you were in the United States, then in Hong Kong, and also in Mainland China. So I think it’s really interesting to hear your perspective. Thank you very much for that.

I’d like to also, before giving the floor to our next speakers, I’d like to remind  the people who join us every minute or during the Oncothon, you may leave your comments to our speakers or just your suggestions or questions in the chats. We are live streaming in different channels, on social media, on YouTube, on several places, so please engage with us using the chat, and we’ll be happy to give you the floor by raising your questions here.

Professor Peng, I think there is, just you need to push the button to turn it around the camera. Please try it that way. Before you do, I will give the floor to Professor Hori, and just briefly, Professor Hori, if you could share your ideas about the situation of pediatric cancer in Japan and as a SIOP Asia president in Asia region, and also your perspective about the drug development and the importance of such initiatives.

Hiroki Hori: Okay, thank you. Gevorg, Thank you for your kind introduction. Can you hear me? It’s okay? 

Gevorg Tamamyan: Very well.

Hiroki Hori: Okay, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. I’m Hiroki Hori, a pediatric oncologist working in Japan. I am a member of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology, SIOP, and currently in the position of Continental President of Asia in SIOP.

As a Continental President of SIOP Asia, I would like to share my wish to save all lives of children with cancer in Asia and in the world. World Health Organization, WHO, initiated the Global Initiatives for Child Cancer, WHO-GICC. SIOP and SIOP Asia get actively involved in the activities, and I myself strongly hope to contribute to the improvement of survival and quality of life of children with cancer.

Advocacy for children with cancer is strongly emphasized in the activities of WHO-GICC. In this point, the activity of Oncothon will be a great support to children with cancer. The development of new therapeutics and well-designed clinical trials have been producing better outcome of patients with pediatric cancer in the last several decades, mainly in Western countries.

Of course, many oncologists in low- and middle-income countries have contributed to advancement in pediatric oncology in each country. But there are still a lot of barriers against the best practice in pediatric oncology in these countries. We would like to make more effort for delivering the better oncology care to children with cancer in these countries.

I believe that common mission is to reduce the disparity in the practice and care for children with cancer and their families between low-, middle-, and high-income countries. Let’s work together for children with cancer. Thank you for your kind attention. That is my message. 

Gevorg Tamamyan: Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor Hori. Thank you for your great message.

And I’d like to give the floor to Professor Peng, to give his insight on the pediatric oncology situation in Taiwan and about the importance of the pediatric drug development and the situation in general. Professor Peng, the floor is yours.

Ching-Tien Peng: Thank you, Professor Tamamyan. You are inviting me to participate in this important activity. So, dear esteemed guests, ladies and gentlemen, good day. I am Dr. Ching-Tien Peng, a professor specializing in hematology and oncology at the China Medical University Children’s Hospital in Taichung, Taiwan. With over 30 years of battling childhood cancers, I’m also privileged to serve on the board of the Taiwan Childhood Cancer Foundation.

Today, OncoDaily is hosting a global telethon dedicated to pediatric cancer research. This 24-hour initiative aims to raise crucial funds for an international clinical trial focusing on the Volocet team developed by Oncology Heroes Biosciences. Pediatric cancer is a tough challenge, but your contribution can truly make a difference.

Every donation will support the A.D. Anderson Avera Leptomyosarcoma Research Fund, backed by the MSY Open Childhood Cancer Foundation. I urge and invite each of you to join us in this no-for-no cause, which is already informed online, and let’s join hands in the fight against the pediatric cancer.

I’m thrilled to be part of this first global Oncothon to raise awareness about the pediatric cancer, and thanks much to Professor Tamamyan for inviting me here as well. It’s also a real honor for me to share my experiences with you all.

Firstly, let me introduce the Childhood Cancer Foundation of Taiwan, since 1982. We’ve been providing care for children with cancer and spreading awareness, from setting up databases to hosting parent meetings. We are fully committed. While we’ve made progress with the cure rate jumping from 60 percent to almost the 90 percent, there is still work to be done. Over 10 percent of cases still see children succumbing to this disease, especially in challenging situations like the diabetes, but we are not giving up.

Together, we are paving the way for a brighter, cancer-free future for children worldwide. Secondly, we are assembling a crucial team to tackle cases with high mortality rates. Those that relapse for registered standard treatments, molecular profiling, and the genomic characteristics offer a targeted therapy for such pediatric cancers, aiming for precise therapeutic targets based on individualized profiles.

Our ongoing study at the China Medical University Children’s Hospital in Taiwan, focuses on pediatric and young adult patients with high-risk relapse for refractory cancers by harnessing the power of the genomic providing and bioinformatic analysis. We tailor selective targeted therapies to match individual operations. This holistic approach holds promise in significantly improving disease control and survival outcomes for pediatric and young adult patients with relapse and refractory cancers.

In conclusion, let’s join forces and lend our voices to those who need them the most. Together, we will relegate the childhood cancer to the historical focus. Thank you for being part of this global movement. Your support means everything. Thanks a lot. Once again, bye-bye.

Gevorg Tamamyan: Thank you very much, Professor Peng. Thank you very much for your insight. Thank you very much, Professor Hori, and thank you very much, Professor Kong.

It’s really important to have the insights from different countries and opinions from different countries because one size does not fit all and I think in various areas we have the problems really differ, so we need to have the perspective from everywhere and that’s why it’s very important, and also this is a sign of unity against childhood cancer when we are logging in from all over the world and showing our support for one cause, whether we are in Japan, Taiwan, China, the United States, Europe, Africa or elsewhere.

Thank you very much again and we are going to continue our global Oncothon. It’s the second hour already coming to the end but we still have another 22 hours to live stream on different channels. I would like to remind all our followers and people who are joining us, leave their comments, suggestions and just share us and don’t forget to donate for this, as Professor Peng mentioned, Noble Cause.

Thank you very much again and let’s continue. Thank you.