Funded by CCLG and CCLG Special Named Funds Bethany’s Wish, Freddie’s Fight, The Georgie B Fund and Daniel’s Rainbow Fund
Lead investigator: Mr Max Pachl, Birmingham Children’s Hospital
Grant award: £60,508.39
Awarded December 2020
Indo-cyanine green (ICG) is a type of dye that has been used in children and adults for many decades. It has been used over the past few years in combination with a type of light during surgery in adults and children, including cancer surgery in adults.
It has not been used in surgery for children with kidney or other cancers before but has been used to find areas where these have spread to the lungs. Surgery forms and important part of the treatment of some children with cancer including those with kidney cancer and in those where the cancer has spread to the lungs.
Children will be considered for this study if they have kidney cancer, other types of cancer that can affect muscles, or if they have a cancer that has spread to the lungs. Additionally, they must be due to have an operation to remove some or all of the cancer as part of their normal treatment.
During the surgery, the dye will be injected (either into the tumour or into the blood stream) and then a special type of light will be used that may make the cancer easier to see. The study will aim to see if we can use this dye safely and effectively in children with cancer who are having surgery.
The aim of the study is to assess if using the dye increases the amount of lymph nodes which can be removed during surgery for kidney cancer; to see if it makes the surgery more likely to take out the entire tumour and to allow less invasive surgery to remove lung spread.