• William F. Bradley, Jr., left, acknowledges thanks from Children's Mercy Hospital and the University of Kansas Cancer Center for the gift that he and his wife, Robbie Harding, pledged toward genomic research.
  MIKE SHERRY / KCPT'S FLATLAND

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With the infusion of $10 million in philanthropic support, two of the region’s largest medical centers have established four high-level research positions aimed at making Kansas City an international hub in the fight against pediatric cancers.
Children’s Mercy Hospital and The University of Kansas Cancer Center announced the new endowed chairs Monday evening at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research.
“There are very few causes in our community that touch people’s hearts like children and cancer,” said Dr. Roy Jensen, director of the cancer center.
Each position has an individual focus: immunotherapy, health outcomes, genomics and hematologic malignancies.
Establishment of the endowed chairs came through donations from area foundations and individuals, including the Hall Family Foundation. The Hall money is part of a previously announced $8 million gift the foundation made to cancer center last year.
The funding will go toward luring top-notch pediatric research scientists to the two institutions, outfitting lab space and offering other facilities and staff arrangements.
Recruitment is expected to begin immediately, with no definite timetable on filling the positions. The endowed chairs are a “bold step in creating a better future for children with cancer and ultimately a future where cancer doesn’t exist,” said Dr. Michael Artman, chairman of Children’s Mercy pediatrics department.
Monday’s announcement came about two weeks before a review team from the National Cancer Institute is scheduled to visit the cancer center, which is seeking NCI certification as a “comprehensive” cancer cancer. The center submitted its application in September and NCI is expected to make a decision this summer.
If the application is approved, KU would become the nation’s 48th comprehensive cancer center.
“You can’t be a comprehensive cancer center if you are ignoring pediatric patients,” Jensen said.
William F. Bradley Jr., and his wife, Robbie Harding, helped underwrite the chair in genomic research. The Overland Park, Kansas, couple’s daughter, Lauren, has undergone treatment there for leukemia.
“Our experience with Lauren,” Bradley said, “has taught us that no child deserves the condition that brings them to Children’s Mercy.”
Mike Sherry is online news editor at KCPT’s Flatland. Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @MikeSherryKCPT.

Courtesy of news-medical.net and www.connecticutchildrens.org

Quality of life of patients doing yoga improved, according to the conclusions of “Results of a Pilot Yoga Intervention to Improve Pediatric Cancer Patients’ Quality of Life and Physical Activity and Parents' Well-being”.
This study, published in the January 2017 issue of “Rehabilitation Oncology”, concluded: “Our findings support the notion that yoga for pediatric cancer patients during active treatment is feasible and potentially helpful in improving both patients' and parents' well-being.” It was undertaken by Dr. Andrea D. Orsey and her researcher-colleagues from Connecticut Children's Medical Center, University of Connecticut Hartford School of Medicine, University of Connecticut Storrs, Denmark's LEGO Foundation and Connecticut's Center for Public Health and Health Policy.
The yoga sessions in the study were reportedly designed to teach yoga as a form of integrative therapy for pain management, fatigue, stress, anxiety, and overall helpfulness to improve the quality of life. These included breathing, yoga asanas, relaxation, meditation and savasana.
The authors wrote: We found preliminary evidence that participating in yoga was associated with increased social and emotional health-related quality of life. Yoga is desired by many patients and their parents, and it appears that it may be helpful. Our study contributes to the growing body of literature suggesting the helpfulness of yoga in the context of pediatric cancer patients.
Meanwhile, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, called this study, undertaken by Connecticut and Denmark researchers looking into the possible usage of yoga for pediatric cancer patients, “a step in the positive direction”. Zed urged all major world schools of medicine to explore various benefits yoga offered.
Yoga, referred as “a living fossil”, was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted.

Rajan Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in Yoga Sutra, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.
According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to a “2016 Yoga in America Study”, about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities) now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image.  Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.
Writing about the purpose of this study, authors wrote: Yoga is increasingly proving beneficial in improving distress, pain, physical activity, and health-related quality of life in adult patients with cancer. We aimed to study the feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a yoga intervention for pediatric cancer patients in active treatment and for their families.
Authors also wrote: According to the American Cancer Society, approximately 10,380 children living in the United States younger than 15 years receive a diagnosis of cancer annually. Yoga may be especially helpful for cancer patients, given that it can be practiced anywhere and is easily modifiable to physical limitations by accommodating yoga in a hospital bed, chair, or wheelchair. The growing body of literature suggests that yoga may be helpful for pediatric cancer patients in active treatment.