New treatment regime ‘can improve brain cancer children outcome’

A new strategy for treating children with brain cancer can “substantially” improve patient outcomes, according to a new a new report.

Tailoring radiotherapy to the severity of the brain cancer, followed by a short dose of chemotherapy, can produce very promising outcomes, according to the Lancet Oncology.

Using this technique, scientists were able to reach a survival rate of approximately 70 per cent, compared to a typical survival rate of 30 to 40 per cent over the course of five years in children with a high risk medulloblastoma.

Dr Amar Gajjar of the St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, stated: “Not only can we now cure about 70 per cent of children with high-risk medulloblastoma, we can also cure more than per cent of those with standard-risk disease with a shorter, and therefore more convenient, chemotherapy approach

“Our research focused on understanding the biology of medulloblastoma. We now need to develop a biological system of staging that works in conjunction with the current clinical staging system to further refine treatment for this disease,” he concluded.

Cancerbackup, the brain tumour information website, describes medulloblastoma as a type of brain tumour that “very rarely” spreads to other parts of the body.

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