ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation

The mission of the ChadTough Defeat DIPG Foundation is to inspire and fund game-changing research to discover effective treatments for pediatric brain cancer, with an emphasis on diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG). Brain cancer is killing more kids than any other type of cancer. DIPG represents 10% of all pediatric brain tumors but nearly 50% of all pediatric brain cancer deaths. Our vision is for DIPG to no longer be a death sentence. DIPG is a brain tumor found in the Pons of the brain stem. Children are typically diagnosed between the ages of 5-7 with around 300-350 new cases per year in the United States. The median survival rate is 9 months from diagnosis, only 10% of patients survive 2 years from diagnosis. Long term survivors total less than 1%. What makes DIPG so difficult to treat is not only its location (a very small area of the brain stem responsible for many critical bodily functions including breathing, swallowing, respiration, equilibrium and eye movement) but also the fact that it is “diffuse” (as opposed to looking like a solid mass or ball, it spreads out and mixes with healthy cells, it is sometimes described as looking “marbled”). The only standard of care to treat DIPG is radiation. Radiation is used to shrink the tumor giving temporary relief of symptoms but after a period of time the tumor typically grows back. As it grows, it cuts off those critical bodily functions until the child can no longer swallow or breathe and eventually succumbs. You cannot surgically remove DIPG and until very recently it was considered dangerous to even biopsy. DIPG presents a great challenge, it is an extremely difficult and complex disease. We believe a cure will come from talented, passionate people working collaboratively. It will come from “Thinking outside the Box” and taking some risks. It will come from small breakthroughs happening in many different areas of medicine. The ChadTough Foundation is committed to funding this work.