Family Gains 'Glimmer of Hope' as Toddler Heads to New York for Experimental Neuroblastoma Vaccine Trial

Teddy Sloman is three years old, and he is learning to use a stethoscope and take blood pressures while other children his age learn to jump in muddy puddles and climb frames. That is how his mother, Sarah, describes the boy who spent ten months in Noah's Ark Children's Hospital for Wales. Next month the family from Pontypool, Torfaen, will fly to New York so he can begin an experimental vaccine trial for neuroblastoma, a rare and aggressive childhood cancer.

Almost a year ago, doctors warned Teddy's parents that he might not survive the surgery meant to save his life. Recent scans, however, showed no active disease. Sarah says she hopes the trip will be "the final chapter" of his treatment and "the end of this ridiculous nightmare." She says the family has given him the best chance medical science can offer.

The diagnosis came in July 2025, after months in which his symptoms were put down to teething, illness and constipation. Teddy stopped eating and drinking, slept for hours by day and night, and began vomiting. Sarah felt a mass in his abdomen and was first told it was just faeces. When he stayed unwell, she took him back to The Grange Hospital in Cwmbran. A locum doctor in charge of the children's assessment unit told her these symptoms were not normal and ordered a scan. It showed the mass was a significant tumour.

The tumour filled his whole abdomen, pressing on his organs and making it hard for him to eat or even breathe. The cancer had also spread to his bone marrow. Sarah, a paediatric nurse, said the diagnosis felt surreal, since she had been in that same situation as a student nurse some 20 years earlier. "This is my work world," she said. "This is not supposed to be my personal life." Aneurin Bevan health board said it recognised how distressing it can be for parents when a child is seriously unwell and symptoms are hard to diagnose. It invited the family to contact it so their concerns could be fully reviewed.

Treatment took the family to Birmingham and London as well as Cardiff, and it has left lasting effects. Teddy now receives all his food through a tube and must learn to eat and drink again. Long stretches in bed meant he has had to learn to walk three times. His younger brother Joey, nearly two, spent most of that time with grandparents and relatives, and Sarah speaks of "mum guilt." Because of a measles outbreak in New York, the family made what she called a heartbreaking decision to leave Joey in the UK on the first trip.

The path to New York was narrowed in June, when the family learned that a maintenance drug, difluoromethylornithine (DFMO), which could help prevent relapse, had been withdrawn from the NHS by the US company that owns it after a clinical trial. Patients already taking it could continue for two years, but new patients such as Teddy could not. Sarah says they know of no other family going through the private treatment route. To be referred to the vaccine trial, Teddy needed a urine sample, a bone marrow aspirate and scans declaring no active disease. When the results came back clear, she said, it was "Christmas come early."

Teddy has been formally accepted, with his first appointment in November. Sarah says that if he relapses, survival rates drop to single figures, so even a small chance that the vaccine helps is worth it. At one point the couple considered selling their house and taking out loans. Friends instead launched a campaign for £250,000 and reached it in 12 weeks, which Sarah had thought they would never manage. The target has since been raised to £350,000 to cover ongoing costs, and more than £300,000 has been raised.

Sarah argues that childhood cancers need more focus, support and research, and calls their funding "harrowing" compared with adult cancers. "We shouldn't need to be raising all this money to fly the other side of the world for drugs," she said. The Welsh government says improving cancer care is a top priority, pointing to a 10-year strategy and to funding for early-stage trials for children and young people through Health and Care Research Wales and Cancer Research UK. For now, the family's attention turns to the November appointment in New York.