A young cancer survivor spent Christmas in New York while having the first doses of a vaccine to stop her deadly disease returning. Seven-year-old Arianna Solieri was diagnosed with high-risk neuroblastoma two years ago and finished her frontline treatment in November.
The rare and aggressive cancer has a 50 percent relapse rate. Her parents Abigail, 35, and Chris, 36, were determined to do everything to boost her chances of staying in remission.
They fundraised £300,000 and moved to the US for a month with their four daughters so Arianna could join a clinical trial of the jab.
Abigail said: “We’re over the moon that we’ve managed to not only raise enough money for it but to get to this point. A lot of families don’t.
“If it reduces [her chance of relapse] by just one percent, that’s enough to go forward. Anything to prevent it coming back.”
READ MORE: Cancer is ‘a ticking timebomb’ for children but vaccine gives hope
The vaccine, only available at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, is experimental and there is not yet enough data to prove whether it prevents relapse. But dozens of desperate British families have nonetheless travelled to the US to get it.
The Daily Express Back Britain to Beat Childhood Cancer campaign urges the Government to fund the European side of a transatlantic study that would allow children to have the treatment here. Estimates suggest this would cost £10-15 million.
Abigail said planning the month-long trip with Arianna and her three sisters had been “extremely stressful”. Patients must join the trial quickly after receiving the all-clear, and the family had only four days’ notice.
Abigail said: “Arianna has missed out on so much school and we’ve had to pull her out again for this.
“We’ve spent so much time away from the other girls that leaving them behind for such a long period wasn’t really an option. It was really important for us all to come out.
“The expense of coming out here is astronomical. The price of food alone is about triple the amount we would spend in the UK.
“The accommodation costs $600 (£470) a night, then there are flights. The money we could save having this in the UK is pretty ridiculous.”
The family arrived in The Big Apple on December 2. Between hospital appointments, Arianna and her sisters have visited the Statue of Liberty, the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, and Brooklyn Bridge.
Arianna has had three injections and will return several times over the next few years until she has received a total of 10 doses.
Abigail added: “It’s been tiring and a painful experience to some extent for her. I think she’s enjoying it, finding it different and exciting, but four weeks is a long time to be away.
“I hope that Arianna remains cancer free and goes back to her life without cancer. That will always be the hope – that it never returns and she can just live a normal life.
“We know the treatment has impacted her future, that she will be infertile and her organs might not be as strong. We can prepare for that. We also want to raise awareness that cancer happens in children and more funding needs to be put towards it.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said it spent £1 billion a year on research into a range of cancers including neuroblastoma.
They added: “Being diagnosed with cancer is devastating for anyone, but especially for children and their families.
“We’re making huge progress in the fight against cancer with the NHS seeing and treating record numbers of cancer patients over the last two years. Treatment of childhood cancers has also greatly improved with survival rates for children diagnosed with cancer up to 86.2 percent.”
You can support Arianna’s fundraising here.
