When doctors diagnosed a 4-year-old doctor with brain tumors, they told her parents there was little hope. But then they all decided to take the only chance they had.

 

Three years ago, no one knew if Allison Schablein would ever walk to the bus stop. Now, it’s hard keeping up with her.

 

Just before Allison’s 5th birthday, she was diagnosed with 7 malignant, metastatic brain tumors, gliomas. Doctors could only remove one.  Chemotherapy and radiation couldn’t wipe out the rest.

 

“She kind of started with a terrible tumor in the worst circumstance,” says Dr. Mark Kieran, Dana Farber Cancer Institute: 

 

Dr. Kieran and a team of doctors at Dana Farber , took a closer look at the tumor they’d removed.

He says, “we had done a molecular profile of her tumor which was a very new and exciting technique and one that the family allowed us to do and we discovered the mutation.”

 

Allison’s cancer had a mutation also found in some skin cancer patients, for whom there is a highly successful drug. Only catch? No child, let alone one with brain cancer, had ever taken it.

 

The question was, if it worked in skin cancer, would it work in brain tumors? Dr. Kieran told Allison’s parents, there was only one way to find out. Start a clinical trial with Allison as the first and only patient.

 

Her father Dan Schablein says, “it was pretty scary, actually. We want nothing but the best for our kids, and we want new, we want cutting edge, but it’s also a really tough decision to be first.”

 

In the spring of 2013, Allison started on a drug called Daberafenib. Eight weeks later, her scans were clear. Every tumor, gone.

 

“And we were like, what? What do you meant they’re gone,” her mother Michelle says.

 

 Allison’s monthly check-ups are worthy of celebration–and not just for her family.

 

Dr. Kieran says, “it is so positive for us to see a child like this. We understood the biology. We understood the drug. But we had never combined the two together. Allison’s really the one that’s led that battle. We’ve learned so much from her by virtue of the way she’s responded.”

 

Michelle and Dan admit once your child’s had cancer, you never stop worrying. But Allison’s planning for the future.  She wants to get a dog when she’s older, and become an art teacher.

 

Doctors at Dana Farber say they’re now on the hunt for different mutations in other types of brain tumors, and the drugs that can target them.