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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...anc10.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/10/10/ixhome.html
Several hundred babies and children are made profoundly deaf every year by the drugs given to them to cure their cancers and save their lives, a leading charity says today.
While treating the cancer remains the priority, the damage to hearing, which affects adults as well, has only recently been understood.
Now the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) is appealing to pharmaceutical companies to develop less toxic versions of drugs or others that protect the hearing without diminishing the effect of the chemotherapy.
The drugs that cause the damage are the platinum- based chemotherapy treatments, usually cisplatin, an effective cancer drug developed in the 1970s.
The RNID says that more than 500 children are treated every year in Britain with cisplatin or similar drugs. They say that at least a quarter of children sustain "easily observable" hearing loss and or tinnitus or balance problems. Some research suggests that all treated children will develop profound hearing problems over time.
Cisplatin is used in a third of childhood cancers and substantially adds to the burden of hearing loss in children in this country, the RNID said. Each year, about 800 children will be born with profound deafness. For adults, the picture is less clear, mostly because "before and after" research on hearing loss has not been conducted.
Every year, 68,000 people are treated with cisplatin but hearing loss is not routinely monitored. Even so the risk to adults is put at between 11 and 91 per cent.
Scientists know that cisplatin damages or destroys the sensitive hair cells in the inner ear that relay information to the auditory nerve. They have also discovered that the damage accumulates with each dose given.
Dr Penelope Brock, a child cancer specialist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, and a world expert on hearing damage problems, said: "The cure rate for childhood cancer has improved considerably over past decades and now exceeds 70 per cent.
"Cisplatin will continue to be a major contributor. However, this cure is not without cost to the child. Permanent side-effects are the most damaging and hearing loss is one which affects everyday life and development.
"Children who survive cancer are determined to make the most of the life they have been given but struggle to compete in an increasingly competitive world. Preventing hearing loss would transform their lives and futures."
Munna Vio, the RNID commercial research manager, said thousands of cancer survivors were left with unnecessary hearing damage.
"RNID research indicates that if a suitable drug was approved that effectively protected against hearing loss but did not interfere with chemotherapy, cancer specialists would use it across the board for all cancers treated with cisplatin. The pharmaceutical industry should seize this opportunity to deliver vital drugs."
Several hundred babies and children are made profoundly deaf every year by the drugs given to them to cure their cancers and save their lives, a leading charity says today.
While treating the cancer remains the priority, the damage to hearing, which affects adults as well, has only recently been understood.
Now the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) is appealing to pharmaceutical companies to develop less toxic versions of drugs or others that protect the hearing without diminishing the effect of the chemotherapy.
The drugs that cause the damage are the platinum- based chemotherapy treatments, usually cisplatin, an effective cancer drug developed in the 1970s.
The RNID says that more than 500 children are treated every year in Britain with cisplatin or similar drugs. They say that at least a quarter of children sustain "easily observable" hearing loss and or tinnitus or balance problems. Some research suggests that all treated children will develop profound hearing problems over time.
Cisplatin is used in a third of childhood cancers and substantially adds to the burden of hearing loss in children in this country, the RNID said. Each year, about 800 children will be born with profound deafness. For adults, the picture is less clear, mostly because "before and after" research on hearing loss has not been conducted.
Every year, 68,000 people are treated with cisplatin but hearing loss is not routinely monitored. Even so the risk to adults is put at between 11 and 91 per cent.
Scientists know that cisplatin damages or destroys the sensitive hair cells in the inner ear that relay information to the auditory nerve. They have also discovered that the damage accumulates with each dose given.
Dr Penelope Brock, a child cancer specialist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, London, and a world expert on hearing damage problems, said: "The cure rate for childhood cancer has improved considerably over past decades and now exceeds 70 per cent.
"Cisplatin will continue to be a major contributor. However, this cure is not without cost to the child. Permanent side-effects are the most damaging and hearing loss is one which affects everyday life and development.
"Children who survive cancer are determined to make the most of the life they have been given but struggle to compete in an increasingly competitive world. Preventing hearing loss would transform their lives and futures."
Munna Vio, the RNID commercial research manager, said thousands of cancer survivors were left with unnecessary hearing damage.
"RNID research indicates that if a suitable drug was approved that effectively protected against hearing loss but did not interfere with chemotherapy, cancer specialists would use it across the board for all cancers treated with cisplatin. The pharmaceutical industry should seize this opportunity to deliver vital drugs."