A two-million dollar gift to The Cancer Center from a Houston family honors son’s battle with rare form of cancer

March 4, 2014

The Virani family is donating $2 million to Texas Children’s Cancer Center to establish and support research efforts at the Faris D. Virani Ewing’s Sarcoma Research Center, located on the 10th floor of Texas Children’s Hospital’s Feigin Center. The gift honors their 8 year old son Faris Virani’s battle with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare disease in which cancer cells are found in the bone or soft tissue. Diagnosed in January 2013, Faris is still in treatment but does not have any active disease.

The research efforts will aim to develop better diagnostic and therapeutic approaches and for a cure to become a reality for children with Ewing’s sarcoma. At a ceremony celebrating the new center, Faris presented pediatric oncologist, Dr. Jason Yustein, with a piggy bank containing the first gift towards the new research center.

Ewing’s sarcoma is the second most common bone tumor in childhood and one of the most prevalent pediatric tumors. Over the past 30-40 years because of the lack of understanding of the biology of Ewing’s sarcoma, only marginal advancements have been made in the care and management of patients with this disease. In order to develop better diagnostic and therapeutic approaches and a cure for Ewing’s sarcoma, more research need to be conducted so that efforts can be focused on improving treatment approaches.

Unfortunately, many patients with Ewing’s sarcoma experience metastatic disease that spreads to multiple sites in their body and a significant portion of patients that do respond to therapy eventually relapse. In the last 15 years, only one new chemotherapeutic agent has been introduced to the treatment regimen for patients with this disease and currently treatments are extremely intensive and may have both short and long term effects that can negatively impact lifestyle and quality of life for these patients.