In honor of National Childhood Cancer Awareness month, the Pediatric Cancer Foundation is announcing a new research trial called pediatric total cancer care.
In 2011, 13-year-old Tony Colton was diagnosed with clear cell sarcoma and had to have his right kidney and two tumors removed.
Since then, Colton has been part of a clinical trial and knows how important research is to the disease.
"Kids that will later be diagnosed with my type of cancer will have more of a background on their type of cancer, more research done and it'll be able to help them through it," said Tony.
Tony and his mom are hopeful new research will help kids beat the disease.
"We need for them to be cured, less toxic treatment and to live longer, so this is very important," said Connie Colton.
Dr. Damon Reed treats cancer patients at Moffitt Cancer Center and All Children’s Hospital and is the lead investigator in the trial. He says he hopes the research helps them learn more about rare cancers in kids and how to better treat them.
"What we'd like to be able to do for these patients is get their tumors and look at them very closely, look at the genes, protein and all of the sort of things that made the cancer,” said Dr. Reed. “Try to learn something from that and try to treat them in a smarter way."
PCF says tissue banking has been successful with adult cancer patients but has not been available to young cancer patients locally. The trial should launch by the end of the year.