Many of the improvements in survival in childhood cancer have been made as a result of clinical trials that have attempted to improve on the best available, accepted therapy. Clinical trials in pediatrics are designed to compare new therapy with therapy that is currently accepted as standard. This comparison may be done in a randomized study of two treatment arms or by evaluating a single new treatment and comparing the results with those previously obtained with existing therapy.

Because of the relative rarity of cancer in children, all patients with brain tumors should be considered for entry into a clinical trial. To determine and implement optimum treatment, treatment planning by a multidisciplinary team of cancer specialists who have experience treating childhood brain tumors is required. Both surgery and radiation therapy of pediatric brain tumors is technically very demanding and should be carried out in centers that have experience in these areas in order to ensure optimal results. Less than optimal techniques have resulted in failure at the junction of the brain and spine radiation fields or in the cribriform plate region.[1] Patients should be treated in a center experienced with this therapy.

In the past, treatment has included surgery with radiation therapy. There is evidence to suggest that more extensive surgical resections are related to an improved rate of survival, primarily in children with nondisseminated posterior fossa disease at diagnosis. Chemotherapy has been shown to be active in patients with medulloblastomas. Prospective, randomized trials and large single-arm trials suggest that adjuvant chemotherapy given during and after radiation therapy improves overall survival for the subset of children with medulloblastoma who have less favorable prognostic factors, and there has been considerable data supporting the role of chemotherapy in the treatment of medulloblastoma.[2-5] Children younger than 3 years are particularly susceptible to the adverse effect of radiation on brain development. Debilitating effects on growth and neurologic development have frequently been observed, especially in younger children.[6-9] For this reason, the role of chemotherapy in allowing a delay in the administration of radiation therapy is under study, and preliminary results suggest that chemotherapy can be used to delay, and sometimes obviate, the need for radiation therapy in children with medulloblastoma.[2,10] Surveillance testing is presently a part of all ongoing medulloblastoma studies.[11,12] Secondary tumors have increasingly been diagnosed in long-term survivors.[13-15] Long-term management of these patients is complex and requires a multidisciplinary approach.

The designations in PDQ that treatments are “standard” or “under clinical evaluation” are not to be used as a basis for reimbursement determinations.

References

1. Carrie C, Hoffstetter S, Gomez F, et al.: Impact of targeting deviations on outcome in medulloblastoma: study of the French Society of Pediatric Oncology (SFOP). Int J Radiat Oncol Biol Phys 45 (2): 435-9, 1999.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
2. Duffner PK, Horowitz ME, Krischer JP, et al.: Postoperative chemotherapy and delayed radiation in children less than three years of age with malignant brain tumors. N Engl J Med 328 (24): 1725-31, 1993.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
3. Ater JL, van Eys J, Woo SY, et al.: MOPP chemotherapy without irradiation as primary postsurgical therapy for brain tumors in infants and young children. J Neurooncol 32 (3): 243-52, 1997.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
4. Packer RJ, Sutton LN, Elterman R, et al.: Outcome for children with medulloblastoma treated with radiation and cisplatin, CCNU, and vincristine chemotherapy. J Neurosurg 81 (5): 690-8, 1994.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
5. Taylor RE, Bailey CC, Robinson K, et al.: Results of a randomized study of preradiation chemotherapy versus radiotherapy alone for nonmetastatic medulloblastoma: The International Society of Paediatric Oncology/United Kingdom Children's Cancer Study Group PNET-3 Study. J Clin Oncol 21 (8): 1581-91, 2003.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
6. Packer RJ, Sutton LN, Atkins TE, et al.: A prospective study of cognitive function in children receiving whole-brain radiotherapy and chemotherapy: 2-year results. J Neurosurg 70 (5): 707-13, 1989.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
7. Johnson DL, McCabe MA, Nicholson HS, et al.: Quality of long-term survival in young children with medulloblastoma. J Neurosurg 80 (6): 1004-10, 1994.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
8. Ris MD, Packer R, Goldwein J, et al.: Intellectual outcome after reduced-dose radiation therapy plus adjuvant chemotherapy for medulloblastoma: a Children's Cancer Group study. J Clin Oncol 19 (15): 3470-6, 2001.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
9. Walter AW, Mulhern RK, Gajjar A, et al.: Survival and neurodevelopmental outcome of young children with medulloblastoma at St Jude Children's Research Hospital. J Clin Oncol 17 (12): 3720-8, 1999.  [PUBMED Abstract]
   
   
10. Mason WP, Grovas A, Halpern S, et al.: Intensive chemotherapy and bone marrow rescue for young children with newly diagnosed malignant brain tumors. J Clin Oncol 16 (1): 210-21, 1998.  [PUBMED Abstract]
    
    
11. Torres CF, Rebsamen S, Silber JH, et al.: Surveillance scanning of children with medulloblastoma. N Engl J Med 330 (13): 892-5, 1994.  [PUBMED Abstract]
    
    
12. Saunders DE, Hayward RD, Phipps KP, et al.: Surveillance neuroimaging of intracranial medulloblastoma in children: how effective, how often, and for how long? J Neurosurg 99 (2): 280-6, 2003.  [PUBMED Abstract]
    
    
13. Jenkin D: Long-term survival of children with brain tumors. Oncology (Huntingt) 10 (5): 715-9; discussion 720, 722, 728, 1996.  [PUBMED Abstract]
    
    
14. Goldstein AM, Yuen J, Tucker MA: Second cancers after medulloblastoma: population-based results from the United States and Sweden. Cancer Causes Control 8 (6): 865-71, 1997.  [PUBMED Abstract]
    
    
15. Stavrou T, Bromley CM, Nicholson HS, et al.: Prognostic factors and secondary malignancies in childhood medulloblastoma. J Pediatr Hematol Oncol 23 (7): 431-6, 2001.  [PUBMED Abstract]