Letting Troubles Slide

For 8-year-old cancer survivors Lauren Yao and William Hinton, it was a dream come true: a chance to raise funds for cancer research and skate with the Mighty Ducks at the Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim.

The skaters joined dozens of other children on Sunday at the inaugural benefit for the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation in Irvine.

“I learned to skate backward,” said Lauren, whose leukemia has been in remission for five years. “They told me to bend my knees and skate side to side.”

William learned how to play tag on the ice and got his hockey stick autographed by the Ducks.

“It was fun,” said William, whose bladder cancer has been in remission for two years. “I’d like do it again.”

The timing of the event couldn’t have been better for the boy.

“This is the first year he has really felt well since he was diagnosed with cancer at age 4,” said Audrey Busby, 30, William’s mother.

“We think this Skate-a-Thon is a really big deal,” she added. “My son is in remission because of all the research that has been done. A lot of that research came from money raised at events like these.”

To participate in the Skate-a-Thon, each child was invited to find sponsors who would help raise at least $250 for cancer research.

When William asked his grandfather, William Hinton Sr., for a donation, the family patriarch wrote a check for $1,000.

“He wanted to show William how important he thought it was to raise money for research,” Busby explained. “He wanted to show him that this was a way to help children get well.”

Indeed. For young cancer survivors, research has made the difference.

“Ten years ago, we didn’t understand enough about the use of donor cells to cure leukemias the way we do today,” said Steven Neudorf, a pediatric oncologist at St. Joseph Hospital in Orange. “Then, people were only thinking about that.”

Proceeds from the Skate-a-Thon will help support the foundation’s Cord Blood Bank, Neudorf said.

“We have developed a repository where we collect placenta blood that is otherwise thrown away,” he explained. “It contains stem cells that become blood cells when we do bone marrow or stem cell transplants.”

Cancer research falls into three main areas, Neudorf said: basic, translational and clinical.

The first area encompasses the laboratory programs where researchers determine what makes a cancer cell different from a normal cell. There, therapies are designed to target the abnormalities while sparing the normal cells.

The translational area takes curative techniques from “the lab bench to the bedside,” Neudorf said. “It is the zone between research and clinical medicine--applied research.

In this area, “Researchers are working on ways to develop vaccines for pediatric cancers. One of the next big waves in cancer research is to look at how we can use a patient’s own immune system to help get rid of cancers.”

The use of cord blood is an outcome of the clinical research area. “We give the stem cells [taken from placenta blood] to patients to shorten the period of times their blood counts are low following chemotherapy and radiation--when they are susceptible to bleeding and infection,” Neudorf said.

“One of the exciting things about pediatric oncology is that it is changing. Every year we have new drugs, new ideas, new therapies. We are slowly chipping away at the mortality of childhood cancers.”

For information on the Pediatric Cancer Foundation: (949) 727-7483.

Artistic Standouts

Nominations are in the works for the inaugural Orange County Arts Awards benefit to be held May 11 at the Four Seasons hotel in Newport Beach.

Tonight, arts activists Phil and Mary Lyons of Newport Beach will welcome supporters of Arts Orange County--a countywide arts council--into their waterfront home to help promote the project.

Ten awards for artistic achievement will be handed out at the May dinner. Proceeds from the event will support arts organizations, artists and arts education in Orange County.

Catherine Thyen of Corona del Mar is chairwoman. “It’s not going to be a black-tie affair,” she said. “Just a nice Thursday evening event.”

Committee members include Cindy Beyl, Peggy Goldwater Clay, Shari Esayian, Barbara Glabman, Olivia Johnson, Nora Lehman, Betty Belden Palmer and Carol Wilken.

For information: (714) 556-5160.

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Ann Conway can be reached at (714) 966-5952 or by e-mail at ann.conway@latimes.com.