Four-year-old Maxi beats aggressive leukaemia, starts kindergarten
Maxi Catania beat acute promyelocytic leukaemia. She entered remission after nine months of treatment.
Maxi Catania was three when bruises and fever led to a diagnosis. It shocked her mother Jana: acute promyelocytic leukaemia, a fast-moving aggressive cancer.
Nine months of chemotherapy, including arsenic, followed. Side effects were severe.
Today, Maxi is in remission and started kindergarten in February. Maxi's mother credits medical research advances for giving her daughter better treatment options.
More than $4 million has been invested in the WA Child Research Fund to develop treatments like immunotherapy that are less harmful than standard chemotherapy. Dr Sebastien Malinge works at the University of Western Australia.
He is researching targeted treatments for myeloid leukaemia that spare healthy cells. The treatments that saved Maxi's life brought her as close to death as possible before bringing her back.
- Three years old
- Age at diagnosis
- Nine months
- Treatment duration
- Over $4 million
- WA child health research funding
Why it mattersMedical research directly saves children's lives. It turns diagnoses that were once fatal into survivable conditions.
AustraliaWestern Australia's Telethon fund has delivered $50 million across 160 child health projects since 2012, funding research that is now saving local children from aggressive cancers.
✓ Claims checked against the source. checked 2 h ago
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