Eat Love Give – The Cause
SAVING THE WORLD, ONE PRECIOUS LIFE AT A TIME
Did you know that brain cancer kills more children in Australia than any other types of cancer? DIPG is the deadliest of all childhood cancers. While the DIPG parents’ community fighting hard for better treatment options, our numbers are small and sadly, our voice isn’t being heard.
The survival rate for these kids has not improved over the last 20 years. The only standard of care is radiation therapy, which only often extends the child’s life for a further 3-6 months. Very few clinical trials ever make it to Australia due to limited funding, complex and stringent approval processes, safety & efficacy concerns, bureaucracy etc. and often the lengthy delays in making these treatment options available. Those diagnosed with DIPG have little time on their side.
So, we bring you : Eat Love Give.
When you order rice paper rolls on our selected menu, Saigon Summer will donate 1 whole dollar directly towards Eat Love Give. It is incredible to know that when you have your meals with us you are also making an impact.
Our first initiative is to bring the MRI guided focused ultrasound technology to Australia. We believe this initiative will make a massive difference in improving outcomes for those patients with terminal conditions who are told “Sorry, there is nothing we can do, just go home and make memories”. It may seem small, but when our whole community participates the funds really add up. We hope Eat Love Give will go beyond this first initiative and support more projects to further improve outcomes for terminal conditions in the future.
Why?
Here’s our Story
In December 2020, our beautiful 6-year-old daughter Maddie was diagnosed with a rare brain cancer, known as DIPG – Diffused Intrinsic Pontine Glioma. This deadly brainstem tumour affects about 20 kids a year in Australia, and the average survival is 9 -12 months.
Maddie has done extremely well to date. Unfortunately, the MRI scans in June 2022 however, confirmed tumour progression, so once again, we are in search for treatment options. Our journey took us to the USA visiting the top hospitals and research centers such as Stanford, UCSF and Duke. Our oncology team at Westhead Hospital has managed to expedite a clinical trial known as PNOC022, and she started re-radiation in the first week of October 2022.
While there are limited treatment options, with no guaranteed outcomes, we remain hopeful to find a cure. No child should have to suffer from this horrible deadly disease.
Why is this focused ultrasound technology such a promising treatment option?
Sonodynamic Therapy is a newly developed non-invasive treatment method that uses MRI guided focused ultrasound technology. Combined with SONALA-001 which is a proprietary intravenous formulation of aminolevulinic acid (ALA) developed by SonalaSense (https://sonalasense.com/our-science), Clinical trials have already begun for the treatment of glioblastoma and aggressive brain tumours, SONALA-001 in combination with this MRI-guided focused ultrasound it has the potential to treat the majority of tumors of epithelial origin: gliomas, meningiomas, pancreatic, ovarian, gastric, bladder, skin, esophageal, lung, gall bladder, and breast cancer.
The first few DIPG patients are currently being treated in National Children’s Hospital in Washington DC and showing promising results. Positive results have been shown at the Ivy Brain Centre in Phoebe Arizona.
All funds raised will go to purchase the new model focused ultrasound machine – Exablate 4000 Type 2.0 MRI-guided focused ultrasound device 220Khz, which is currently not available in Australia. Any unused funds will be forwarded to the charities mentioned below. With your help, we can make this happen.
Organisations we support and partner with to make this dream come true
