Your Impact

For decades, chemotherapy, radiation and surgery have been the mainstays of treating cancer, however these treatments have unwanted side effects, and can leave survivors with chronic health problems, and lifelong physical and intellectual disabilities.

Your donations have supported the establishment of the Ian Frazer Centre for Children’s Immunotherapy Research. By capitalising on the strengths of a multidisciplinary team of experts, the Centre will accelerate the pace of discovery and ensure research is translated into a new era of children’s cancer treatments.

About 400,000 Australian children currently live with a rare disease. One-third of these children will not live to see their fifth birthday.

With your support, the Queensland Children's Hospital ACTION (Advanced Therapies and Clinical Trials Innovation) Centre opened in May this year to give Queensland children better access to life saving cutting-edge clinical trials and advanced therapies.

Through one centralised statewide hub, the ACTION Centre will deliver hope and promising new treatment options for children with rare diseases and complex illnesses.

Because of you, we were able to help establish the Children’s Brain Cancer Centre.

Through our multi-year commitment, researchers have discovered that spinal fluid collected in routine lumbar punctures can be used to create a ‘genomic fingerprint’ of a child’s cancer, which can be used to create individually tailored treatments.

This revolutionary discovery could become the standard for treating brain cancer in kids. Research findings like this give kids like Isaac with brain cancer hope for a better future.

Since 2008, your support has funded the Queensland Children’s Tumour Bank – an openly accessible paediatric tumour tissue bank at the Children’s Centre for Health Research.

Through the collection paediatric tissue samples, doctors have been able to find answers and develop new treatments for children with cancer, including neuroblastoma, leukaemia and brain tumours – supporting research in Queensland and beyond.

Queensland Children’s Hospital is now home to a state-of-the-art digital PET-CT scanner, thanks to a $2.5 million investment from supporters like you.

This digital PET-CT scanner will provide easier and faster scans for paediatric oncology patients undergoing treatment at Queensland Children’s Hospital. Ensuring kids like Raf can have the right care delivered in the right place at the right time.

Thanks to you, a high-density electroencephalography (EEG) machine has been funded at the Children’s Centre for Health Research.

This piece of equipment is central to a research study that is monitoring brain waves in children affected by stroke and brain injury. Helping kids like Rowan have a more pleasant treatment experience and giving clinicians a more comprehensive understanding of their brain patterns during recovery.

Because of you, we have been able to support one of Australia’s largest music therapy programs at Queensland Children’s Hospital for over 30 years, helping sick kids on their road to recovery.

Music therapy is so much more than simply playing music. Research shows the use of individualised musical interventions can improve a child’s emotional wellbeing, help them experience less pain and anxiety during their treatment and support diverse health outcomes.

Last year, the music therapy team at the Queensland Children’s Hospital provided over 1,800 sessions to almost 750 infants, children, adolescents and their families – over 50 hours of music therapy every week.

Because of you, we can provide our impact programs and services at the Queensland Children’s Hospital to address the needs of families and support the public health system through expanding capacity in a lean operating environment.

From Book Bunker to free meals, bravery beads, craft packs and Cuddle Carers, our programs and services nurture social connection, empowerment and provide safe spaces that kids need to play, learn and be a child.

Each year, we engage in around 120,000 interactions with patients and families during hospital visits and stays.