A Literature Review of the Recent Radiotherapy Clinical Trials in Pediatric Brain Tumors

Primary central nervous system neoplasms are the second malignancy in children following leukemia. Despite developments in neurosurgery and new drugs in chemotherapy, irradiation is an essential part of the management in most of pediatric brain tumors. A good treatment strategy should consider not only survival but also the quality of life. The new approach of radiotherapy and importance of new drugs in combined treatment are recently considered. This article summarizes the recent clinical trials conducted in pediatric brain tumors management. Results of randomized study of pre-irradiation chemotherapy versus radiotherapy alone for medulloblastoma were presented by SIOP/UKCCSG PNET-3. The French M-SFOP 98 protocol considered hyper-fractionated radiotherapy with reduced boost volume, without chemotherapy and estimated impact on early relapses and intellectual function. The influence of radiotherapy quality on survival in high-risk medulloblastoma patients was evaluated in POG Trial 9031. In the treatment of low-grade glioma in children the effectiveness of novel combination chemotherapy was considered. Role of new drugs as temozolamid, topotecan and RMP-7 was investigated in pediatric high grade glioma and brain stem tumors. Impact of combined treatment on outcome of intracranial germ-cell tumors was investigated as well.