A recent study by the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the School of Medicine at the Washington University in St. Louis proposes that young patients with an average risk medulloblastoma can, after a six-week radiation treatment regimen, undergo a radiation boost to a smaller area of the brain.
Medulloblastoma is a pediatric brain cancer that usually affects the spine and/or brain and can spread through a patient’s spinal fluid. The standard of care for this type of cancer includes radiation therapy to the whole spine and brain, after which an extra dose of radiation to the back of the brain is administered in order to prevent the spread of the cancer.
While this is the standard treatment, the radiation utilized in the treatment of these tumors damages cognitive function, particularly in young patients whose brains are still in the early development stages.
Researchers believe that preventive radiation treatment doses that are administered to the patient’s spine and brain over the six-week course cannot be decreased with diminishing survival. In their study, the researchers found that each patient’s cancer responded differently to treatments, noting that this was dependent on the tumors’ biology, which sets the stage for future trials of targeted therapies. The study’s findings were reported in the “Journal of Clinical Oncology.”
Patients with pediatric average risk medulloblastoma have five-year survival rates of 75–90%. Contrastingly, those suffering from high-risk medulloblastoma have five-year survival rate of 50–75%. Factors such as tumor spread and the age of a child are also considered in determining each patient’s risk category.
For their research, scientists focused on patients suffering from average-risk medulloblastoma. They evaluated more than 400 patients, between the ages of 3 and 21, who were diagnosed with the aforementioned cancer. Patients aged between 3 and 7 were randomly assigned to receive either low-dose or standard-dose radiation to the spine and head region in every treatment given over the six-week period. Patients above this age received the standard dose, as their brain development isn’t as vulnerable to radiation.
Prof. Jeff M. Michalski of radiation oncology noted that the objective of the study was to see if the amount of radiation could safely be reduced without affecting the treatment’s efficacy. The researchers discovered that while decreasing the radiation dose over the six-week treatment period negatively affected survival, it was also possible to safely decrease the volume size of the brain that received the radiation boost at the end of the treatment period. Michalski hopes that these measures may assist in the reduction of the treatment’s effects, particularly in younger patients.
Some companies, such as CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP), are also working to come up with better remedies for cancers affecting the brain or central nervous system, and these novel treatments could offer superior clinical outcomes.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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