Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/test-treatments-provide-hope-for-pediatric-cancer-patients Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript About 10,000 children in the United States are diagnosed with cancer each year and those who do not respond well to standard treatments face an especially difficult challenge. The NewsHour reports on test treatments that provide families some hope. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. SUSAN DENTZER, NewsHour Health Correspondent: About 10,000 children in the U.S. under age 15 are diagnosed with cancer each year. Thanks to medical advances, most are cured.But Tara Shirkey, age 4, is typical of the more than one in five kids who are not. Standard treatment failed to halt her aggressive case of a normally treatable form of leukemia. DR. ALAN WAYNE, National Cancer Institute: So, while you play, we're just going to take a quick check-up all right? SUSAN DENTZER: Tara is now on an experimental drug dubbed CAT-3888. It was developed here at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. DR. ALAN WAYNE: OK, young lady. Listen, you have a great day. We'll come and see you later, OK? SUSAN DENTZER: Having just completed her second of six cycles of treatment, Tara is so far responding well, says Dr. Alan Wayne. Shown here with Tara's parents, he heads the pediatric cancer branch at NIH's National Cancer Institute. DR. ALAN WAYNE: We're very pleased with how well she's tolerated this drug. Watching her, clinically, she looks better today than when she started the therapy, so we're cautiously optimistic, if you will. SUSAN DENTZER: Tara's mother, 28 year-old Martha Koon, knows her daughter still faces long odds.MARTHA KOON, Mother of Cancer-Stricken Child: Her life is depending on this drug. If this doesn't work, there's nothing else for Tara. You know, I don't know what's going to happen if this doesn't work. I'm not ready to let go of Tara, and I don't think Tara's ready to let go, either.