MMR syndrome
A Saudi team from King Fahd Medical City succeeded in using a modern immunotherapy treatment for a grade 4 brain tumor (glioblastoma) for a five-year-old Saudi girl, after traditional treatment methods such as surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy failed her condition, without facing any complications with immunotherapy.
The director of the Oncology Center at King Fahd Medical City and the principal investigator supervising the case, Dr. Moussa Al-Harbi, the girl’s case is very rare, as it is the second case published in the world and the first in the Arab world and the Middle East, using immunotherapy for a child with constitutional biallelic mismatch repair deficiency syndrome, confirming that her condition is now stable with daily follow-up in the oncology center.
He added: "This study is to open the way for clinical trials and opening a clinic for genetic tumors in the Medical City to serve these patients and their families in cooperation with the Genome Research Department, and the aim is to set up a national program for examining genetic tumors for early intervention to treat them and is considered the first of its kind in the region. She has been accepted into the oncologist journal in the Personal Medicine Department and won the approval of reviewers for research and has been accepted in several international conferences in the United States, the most recent of which was the International Conference on Pediatric Nervous System Tumors.
On the other hand, the head of the genomic research department at King Fahd Medical City, Dr. Malak Al-Thaqafi, in cooperation with the medical team, the genes of the girl and her family were examined and confirmed that they had this syndrome, which may be common in the Kingdom among children with this type of tumor as a result of frequent inbreeding.
She said, "We are currently examining this syndrome within the Saudi Genome Project with the support of the Medical City for a thousand patients with hereditary cancer syndrome and their families under an integrated research and medical work system," adding, "Returning to cases of brain tumors for the past eight years in King Fahd Medical City, we found that about 20 Percent of children afflicted with this syndrome who have brain tumors of the fourth or third degree, and such treatments are a real application of the principle of personal medicine where the patient is treated according to his genetic map, and a few advanced centers around the world perform it.
