Hackensack Meridian Children’s Health Joins the Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC)

Worldwide Partnership Develops New Therapies for Brain Tumors in Children and Young Adults, Offers Exclusive Clinical Trial Access

Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital at Hackensack University Medical Center is now the only New Jersey children’s hospital to be a part of the Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium (PNOC), an international consortium with centers in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia, giving Hackensack Meridian Children’s Health exclusive access to some of the most leading-edge studies worldwide.

Joining the consortium ensures that Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital remains a force in innovative neuro-oncology research in New Jersey, while also becoming a collaborator on a global level to advance the PNOC goal of developing new therapies for children and young adults with brain tumors.

Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital met the criteria for admission because:

• Specialists in different areas of pediatric brain tumor treatment–such as oncology, neurosurgery, and radiation therapy–combine their expertise to optimize care for each patient.
• Care teams made up of nurses, social workers, psychologists and hospital staff have an in-depth understanding of the needs of families and children suffering from brain tumors.
• Each site has scientists actively engaged in laboratory research on pediatric tumor biology who work with clinicians to translate their findings into therapies.

The PNOC is an international consortium, with study sites in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Europe, India, Israel and Australia. PNOC was formed to provide children with brain tumors access to innovative treatments through clinical trials. The clinical strategies behind these trials are based on the investigation of the molecular and genetic makeup of brain tumors. Membership in the PNOC roughly triples the number of brain tumor trials offered at the Joseph M. Sanzari Children’s Hospital.

Announcement of admission into the consortium coincides with news of a soon-to-be-opened pediatric neuro-oncology laboratory–the first of its kind in New Jersey–at the Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery & Innovation (CDI). Researchers here are undertaking research into treatments for rare brain tumors, specifically embryonal tumors with multilayered rosettes (ETMR), which are exceptionally aggressive and usually affect children younger than four years of age.

Learn More about leading-edge pediatric innovations at Hackensack Meridian Children’s Health.