Cassie Martinez fell asleep in her mother’s arms Tuesday with a needle in her arm. The 4-year-old was receiving a blood infusion to boost her immune system, weakened by a three-year battle with brain cancer.

If Cassie’s family didn’t have insurance, each infusion would cost $20,000 to $30,000, estimated Kristin Martinez, Cassie’s mom.

“Everything is costly,” Kristen said. “We have insurance, thank God.”

About nine children per day are diagnosed with a brain tumor, Kristin said. For that reason, Sabre Holdings Corporation in Southlake — best known for owning travelocity.com — has decided to help children like Cassie, said Sabre attorney Gary Touchstone.

On Sunday, the company presented the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation with a check for $42,000. That money would be enough to cover a single brain tumor surgery or two blood infusions for an uninsured child, Kristin said. The $42,000 check could cover Cassie’s $100 monthly medications for 35 years.

The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation will use the money to fund childhood brain cancer research. Cassie has a form of brain cancer called Desmoplastic Infantile Ganglioglioma — better pronounced as “DIG” by Kristen and her four-year-old. Less than 100 children have been diagnosed with this rare form of brain cancer, but that could change with a little funding. “There’s no research protocol for it. That doesn’t mean you can’t treat it,” Kristin said. “But we have to depend on other research protocols. It’s really made it real for us.”

Cassie’s story is one of many that have prompted Touchstone to get involved with charities that support childhood brain cancer research. Touchstone is the chairman for the Ride for Kids, an annual event in Grapevine where brain cancer survivors are taken on guided tours on motorcycles.

Cassie and Kristen have ridden in Touchstone’s side-car motorcycle for three years.

But, this is the first year Touchstone has gotten his company involved with funding brain cancer research. Though Touchstone has volunteered on his own time, he brought his passions to work this year.

“For me personally, … once you meet some of those kids who are going through this really horrific battle with brain cancer, you can’t help but want to help them,” Touchstone said. “There’s not enough awareness. There’s not enough research being done.”

Touchstone and other coworkers organized the Sabre Cup, a golf tournament hosted in late September for Sabre employees, family members and friends. The 150 participants raised $21,000 in a single afternoon. The corporation matched that amount.

The entrance fee was $135 per golfer, but event organizers upped the ante by offering help to not-so-skilled players. It all came at a price.

Players could buy inches of string — $1 an inch — to measure how far their ball was from the hole. If they bought enough inches of string to connect it to the hole, they could “cheat” and call it in.

Players could also buy $100 mulligans, which is basically a “do over” shot in golf. Players could still make par — even after five swings — if they paid their $100 per swing.

In the end, even golfers with a mediocre swing could win, Touchstone said.

“This was about raising money for charity instead of having the best golfer win. It gave golfers like me a chance,” he said, laughing.

Employees at Sabre also engage in weekend volunteer events, called the Giving Together campaign. Although their headquarters is in Southlake, employees are stationed all around the world, and each office is encouraged to do community service, Touchstone said.

Some of the most recent events Southlake employees have participated in include painting homes, rebuilding schools, setting up computers and cleaning out the dirt basement of the Natural Science Museum at Fair Park.

They also host funny charity events, such as last year’s adult tricycle races. This year, there was a pig race and an office furniture sale, which will benefit a school for hearing-impaired kids.

“Sabre wants to be a good corporate citizen in the community,” Touchstone said. “We take at least a couple of weeks each year, usually more, for our Giving Together campaign.”

For information about how the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation uses its donations, go to www.pbtfus.org.

Science Daily — People with a history of allergies and related diseases have nearly a third lower risk of developing a certain brain cancer than those without the condition.

Atopic diseases, which include asthma, eczema, hay fever, and other allergies, have been linked to a lower risk of glioma, a type of brain cancer that affects glial cells. This association has not been seen with meningioma, a tumor that develops in the membrane that covers the brain.

Eleni Linos of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston and colleagues analyzed eight studies conducted between 1979 and 2007 that examined the association between a history of atopic diseases and a diagnosis of glioma or meningioma.

The researchers found that patients with a history of allergies had a 40 percent lower relative risk of glioma than those without allergies, and patients with a history of eczema or asthma had a 30 percent lower risk. They found no such association with meningioma.

While there is no evidence that the association is causal, “These results are consistent across many geographic settings, study designs, and different atopic diseases and may reflect a protective effect of the immunologic milieu associated with atopic allergy on tumor growth,” the authors write.

This research was published October 9 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.