Kate's Project 2024

In memory of Kate Guthrie

Our story

We are fundraising to raise money for Cancer Research UK in memory of Kate Guthrie. Kate Guthrie was 16 months old when she was diagnosed with a rhabdomyosarcoma. She underwent two major surgeries, massive amounts of chemo and radiotherapy but at no stage did she lose her beautiful smile and the ability to make people laugh. Since Kate's death in 1994, her family have worked alongside CRUK in trying to better understand sarcomas. Over the past 10 years, friends and family have raised £781,616.24 and funded 14 research projects in Kate's memory. In 2022 they made the decision to fundraise in support of Dr Robin Jones' work. Dr Jones' team in London aim to use artificial intelligence to investigate the various factors that impact a patient's response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Soft tissue sarcomas are a type of cancer for which surgery is typically the standard treatment when localised to one area in the body. However, for many patients who undergo surgery, their cancer returns. Chemotherapy given as a first step to shrink a tumour before the main treatment, which is usually surgery, could improve survival for those with soft tissue sarcomas by targeting small groups of cancer cells that have spread to other parts of the body. However, response to this treatment, called neoadjuvant chemotherapy, can vary depending on a number of variables, and currently, there isn't a way to predict how a patient will respond to this treatment. By understanding the factors that influence treatment, doctors will be able to determine which patients with soft tissue sarcoma would benefit from receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy