UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center Magazine Fall 2015 | Page 7
survivor profile
Photos courtesy of Children’s of Alabama
Kaileb McIntyre
B y K AT H Y B O W E R S
BRAIN TUMOR SURVIVOR
When Kaileb McIntyre was born nearly 14 weeks before his due date in April 2012, his doctors
expected that he would face many of the problems typical for premature babies.
10
U A B
C O M P R E H E N S I V E
C A N C E R
C E N T E R
“He weighed only 2 pounds, 2 ounces,
and he had a lot of complications that came along
with him being so small, so he had a tough time
starting from when he was born,” says his mother,
Khalena McIntyre.
A routine scan to monitor Kaileb’s development,
however, revealed a suspicious area in his brain.
Further testing indicated that he had a rapidly
growing immature teratoma, or cancerous tumor.
“When [the doctors] saw how much it had increased
within just 24 hours, they were definitely alarmed,
and they let me know they would be sending Kaileb
to Children’s Hospital,” Mrs. McIntyre says.
Just a few days after Kaileb was transferred to
Children’s of Alabama, surgeons were able to remove
90 percent of his tumor. The remainder was treated
with chemotherapy. A longstanding partner of the
UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center, Children’s of
Alabama is the nation’s third largest pediatric health
care facility and treats 90 percent of the pediatric
hematology-oncology patients in Alabama through
its Alabama Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood
Disorders, a partnership among Children’s, the UAB
Division of Pediatric Hematology-Oncology and the
Cancer Center.
“Whenever we care for a child with a brain
tumor, it takes an elaborate multidisciplinary team
to provide the best care possible,” says Alyssa Reddy,
M.D., Kaileb’s pediatric neuro-oncologist and a senior
scientist at the Cancer Center. “We are fortunate
to have all the resources here to do this
routinely, but Kaileb’s case took us to a
whole new level.”
Ever year in the United States,
approximately 13,400 children between
the ages of birth and 19 are diagnosed with
cancer. Brain tumors are the most common
form of solid tumors among children under the
age of 15 and represent about 20 percent of all
childhood cancers. According to the Pediatric
Brain Tumor Foundation, an estimated 4,552
children and adolescents – approximately 13 each
day – were diagnosed w