Brain Tumors Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Brain Tumors, including details on symptoms, benign and malignant tumors, gliomas, screening, treatment.

Brainstem primitive neuroectodermal tumors (bstPNET): results of treatment with intensive induction chemotherapy followed by consolidative chemotherapy with autologous hematopoietic cell rescue.

Fangusaro JR, Jubran RF, Allen J, Gardner S, Dunkel IJ, Rosenblum M, Atlas MP, Gonzalez-Gomez I, Miller D, Finlay JL

The Children's Hospital Los Angeles, New York University Medical Center, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and Schneider Children's Hospital, USA. jfangusaro@chla.usc.edu

We have evaluated the response rate and survival utilizing intensified chemotherapy followed by myeloablative chemotherapy with autologous hematopoietic cell rescue (AuHCR) and adjuvant radiation therapy in six young children with newly diagnosed brainstem primitive neuroectodermal tumors (bstPNET). Following maximum surgical resection of the tumor, patients received high dose induction chemotherapy including vincristine, cisplatin, cyclophosphamide, and etoposide. Eligible patients received a single cycle of myeloablative chemotherapy followed by AuHCR. Two patients survive at least 32 months with stable disease. This approach provides an alternative for young patients with bstPNET who in prior reports have had a uniformly fatal prognosis.

Published 15 January 2008 in Pediatr Blood Cancer, 50(3): 715-7.
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