Brain tumors
Disease Information
Research & Innovation
A hopeful future
Treatment for brain tumors in children has progressed tremendously in the last decade:
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New tools are being used to help doctors diagnose tumors sooner and with more accuracy.
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Radiation therapy and chemotherapy are increasingly targeting tumors more accurately and effectively while keeping clear of healthy brain cells and tissue.
- A successful new surgical technique is the intra-operative MRI, which gives surgeons a three-dimensional picture of the tumor so they can remove the cancer while leaving other parts of the brain relatively untouched.
Science-driven care
A urine test for brain tumors?
A urine sample can tell you many things. It can reveal pregnancy, signal an infection or unmask drug use. Could a urine sample also tell you about brain tumors? Maybe.
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| Find out what it's like to be a medical research subject. |
Now recruiting: Clinical trial for children with
supratenorial malignant glioma
The use of immunotherapy, especially when combined with standard therapies, is a promising area in the treatment of malignant gliomas in adults. This approach has yielded encouraging clinical results in improving outcomes from surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center is now investigating this treatment avenue for children. and has recently opened an immunotherapy-based gene therapy Phase I clinical trial for children with a supratenorial malignant glioma.
Who is eligible?
Patients between the ages of 3 and 22 with newly diagnosed supratenorial malignant glioma
Referring physicians:
Learn more about the study
For more information, please contact:
Mark Kieran, MD, PhD, Director of Pediatric Medical Neuro-Oncology, DF/CHCC
Primary Investigator
617-632-4386
Mark_Kieran@dfci.harvard.edu
| Gene mutations explain medulloblastoma behavior |
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Why do medulloblastomas behave so differently from child to child? Boston Children's Neurologist-in-Chief Scott Pomeroy, MD, PhD, may have the answer: a set of gene mutations that essentially divide this tumor (the most common malignant childhood brain tumor) into four separate diseases. Learn more. |
| Brain tumors and cerebrospinal fluid |
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Christopher Walsh, MD, PhD, chief of the Division of Genetics at Children's found proteins in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that are associated with a type of brain tumor called glioblastoma. They found that Pals1 protein and Pten protein affect how stem cells grow and divide in the brain, and a disruption in these proteins may be connected to brain tumors. Learn more about this research in the Children’s newsroom. |
