Vlada Kleshcheva is 10 years old, and last year she was diagnosed with neuroblastoma.
Vlada is an only child in the family. She loves the nature and dreams to become a farmer. She has always had many hobbies: sports, drawing, hiking. But for eight months now, she has been living in the hospital, where she has to undergo very heavy treatment.
Vlada has a tumor which usually occurs in very young children - but in rare cases it may happen to schoolchildren as well. Neuroblastoma is not only an aggressive but also an insidious disease: the first symptoms usually begin to appear only when the tumor has already reached significant size and has metastasized. This is how it turned out with Vlada: when in June 2020 the tumor was diagnosed, the foci of neuroblastoma were already spread throughout her body...
Vlada received her first chemotherapy at Morozov Hospital. Gradually she felt much better but further tests revealed that there are still active tumor foci, which can grow again any time.
Cases like Vlada's require an unusual therapy which was implemented in Russia for the first time a few years ago. The child is injected with a special drug, accumulated by the neuroblastoma cells. This drug contains radioactive iodine. As a result, tumor cells aggregate the radioactive substance and are killed from the inside. Doctors believe this procedure markedly increases the chances of successful treatment for Vlada's diagnosis. The only problem is that the needed radioactive drug is not registered in Russia and can only be obtained abroad. Thank you very much for your help, which made it possible to buy this medicine for Vlada!
The radioactive iodine therapy is now behind. Vlada took it without any complications, and she is facing the next stage of treatment - high dose chemotherapy with the help of stem cells. We are very hopeful that this stage will finally resolve the remaining active tumor foci.