Five Towners feel ‘A great sense of accomplishment’

Thanks to the donations of Five Towns residents, an additional treatment to combat neuroblastoma — a rare childhood cancer that affects nerve cells — has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan announced last month that the FDA had approved the initial clinical use of the humanized antibody Hu3F8, which can be used in addition to chemotherapy to treat neuroblastoma. The antibody, developed by Dr. Nai-Kong Cheung and his staff at Sloan-Kettering, is safe for treating neuroblastoma and other cancers, and clinical trials will determine how it works and how effective it is in beating the disease.

The news is overwhelming, said Dr. Asher Mansdorf, a Lawrence-based dentist and president of the Lawrence School District Board of Education. Mansdorf was one of the organizing members of Zev’s Fund, named for Zev Wolff of Woodmere, who was diagnosed with neuroblastoma when he was 3. “To set a goal and actually reach that goal is a tremendous feeling,” Mansdorf said. “We did something really nice, and there is a great sense of accomplishment.”

Zev, who is now 9 and a fourth-grader at Yeshiva of South Shore, was given a 40 percent chance of survival when the disease was discovered six years ago, and his religious community took charge of raising funds to find a cure.

Zev’s Fund, formed in 2007 under the direction of Rabbi Hershel Billet of Young Israel of Woodmere, Mansdorf, and Woodmere residents Elliott Platt, Peter Steinerman and Joe Steinfeld, met with doctors at Sloan-Kettering, where Wolff was being treated, to discuss research projects to which they could donate money so new treatments could be developed for neuroblastoma. It was there that they found out about Cheung’s work.

The fund has raised more than $1.5 million since its first fundraiser at Young Israel of Woodmere in 2007, which was organized by Mansdorf. “It wasn’t a one-man show, it was a one-community show,” he recalled. “We created awareness by letting people know we needed help, and everybody did what they could do.”

Zev’s parents, Dr. Ranan and Helen Wolff, said in a statement that the new antibody treatment might represent a huge leap in the effort to cure the disease. “We are grateful to the donors and supporters of Zev’s Fund and the other organizations, including the Band of Parents, as well as the clinicians and researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering,” they said. “Zev’s Fund would not have been able to accomplish what it has without the tireless efforts, energy and ingenuity of Rabbi Billet, to whom we are eternally thankful.”

When he heard that a child in the community had a serious illness and that funding was needed for research, Billet said, he wanted to help. “While the catalyst was a child in our community, our goal was not only to help Zev but to help other kids with this illness,” he said. “As a rabbi and Orthodox Jew, I feel a responsibility to help others. When you’re in a community, the community is not only about you, it’s about everyone, and just because it’s about someone else’s child doesn’t make it any less about you, because you could be next.”

The antibody, one of the very few drugs specifically made for treating neuroblastoma, was first administered to children last month, after overcoming many hurdles, Dr. Cheung said. “Words cannot describe the excitement our clinical and research team is feeling,” he wrote in a letter to Zev Fund members. “We look forward with great hope, with you, who contributed so much to this effort, towards the results of this trial and success in our fight against neuroblastoma.”