Riley Children's Cancer Center Our Services

Riley Children's Cancer Center provides consulation, diagnostic and treatment services for all blood-related diseases, leukemias and solid tumors that arise in children.

Riley doctors and staff provide compassionate, comforting, family-centered care and expertise to deal with these rare childhood conditions. Our team will individualize and help you select the best therapy for your child. Some of the treatments available to patients include:

  • chemotherapy agents, drugs used to kill cancer cells,
  • antibodies, substances that, either directly or by stimulating the body's natural defenses, kill specific tumor cells,
  • stem cell therapies to stimulate hematopoiesis (the formation of new blood cells) by replacing blood cells destroyed in cancer treatment with healthy blood cells,
  • radiosurgery and radiotherapy, x-rays used to kill cancer cells,
  • clinical trials to study the newest cancer fighting drugs and therapies.

    • Our team is dedicated to healing the body and spirit of both child and family, and offers support services that complement your child's cancer therapies. Quality of care also extends into post-treatment at the Cancer Survivorship Clinic, where a patient’s health is regularly monitored as they reintegrate into active life.

    Pediatric Stem Cell Transplantation Program

    Stem cell transplantation stimulates hematopoiesis (the formation of new blood cells) by replacing blood cells destroyed in cancer treatment with healthy blood cells. The Pediatric Stem Cell Transplantation Program is the only facility of its type in the state of Indiana. It has four full-time faculty, three pediatric nurse practitioners, two clinical coordinators, and a full-time social worker. It performs approximately 40 life-saving stem cell transplants each year.

    Clinical and research activities of the program include:

  • the investigation of alternate sources of hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells, such as allogeneic (taken from a human donor) and autologous (taken from the patient's own tissues) transplantation
  • stem cell transplantation in children with solid tumors, and
  • the use of gene transfer (the insertion of genetic material into a cell) for the correction of blood and immune system disorders originating at birth.

    • Radiation Oncology

    The Department of Pediatric Radiation Oncology has extensive experience with pediatric patients, as well as its expertise with the latest radiotherapy and radiosurgery techniques, such as:

  • 3-D conformal treatment, a procedure that uses a computer to create a 3-dimensional picture of the tumor. This allows doctors to give the highest possible dose of radiation to the tumor, while sparing the normal tissue as much as possible.
  • stereotactic radiosurgery and radiotherapy, a technique that uses special equipment to position the patient and precisely deliver a large radiation dose to a tumor and not to normal tissue.
  • interstitial implant techniques in which radioactive material sealed in needles, seeds, wires, or catheters is placed directly into or near a tumor.

    • Use and experience in such cutting-edge radiation oncology techniques allows us to achieve gratifying results for the most threatening childhood problems.

    Cancer Survivorship Program

    The number of children surviving battles with cancer is ever increasing with 75 percent to 80 percent of children treated for cancer living five years or more after diagnosis, reflecting a dramatic increase in survival rates for children with cancer in the past 10 years. The growing number of survivors from childhood cancers calls special attention to the needs of survivors after treatment.

    The goal of the Riley Cancer Survivorship Program is to help patients reintegrate into normal life at home, school and work -- identifying and addressing any barriers that may interfere with this process along the way. Nutritional and complementary medicine approaches such as exercise are used to help young cancer survivors adapt to and achieve a certain level of well-being after cancer treatment.

    More about Support for Children

    More about Riley Hospital for Children