Rethinking paediatric brain cancer
Canadian researchers find simple reason why some children die despite aggressive modern therapy for brain cancer
TORONTO – It can be frightening enough to know that your child has brain cancer without the additional heartbreak of being told that the treatment is not working despite aggressive therapy. New research from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) has now identified why some therapies for paediatric brain cancer fail – and what can be done in the future to increase cure rates.
Currently, treatment for medulloblastoma, a form of paediatric brain cancer, is targeted to molecular markers formed by genetic mutations. Although in many children the disease has already spread (metastasized) at the time of diagnosis, treatment is determined only from markers found in an examination of the main tumour mass. This therapeutic strategy was based on the widely held assumption that the main tumour mass is very similar, if not identical, to the metastasized cancer cells.