Pediatric medulloblastoma

What is pediatric medulloblastoma?

Medulloblastoma develops from cells in the brain that are believed to be primitive nerve cells.

Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in children and only rarely affects adults.

Risk factors

Each year, around 600 children in the U.S. are diagnosed with this tumor. They are commonly diagnosed in children between the ages of 1 and 10 years.

What are the signs and symptoms of pediatric medulloblastoma?

Medulloblastomas can press into the brain or spinal cord, which can affect your child’s ability to think, move and do other tasks. These tumors can cause symptoms such as:

• General weakness or lack of energy

• Headaches

• Loss of balance or trouble walking

• Nausea and vomiting

• Trouble with handwriting or speech

• Problems with coordination

• Seizures

• Unusual sleepiness

• Weakness on one side of the face

How is pediatric medulloblastoma diagnosed?

• MRI - First, your child will have an MRI. This is a magnetic scan that allows us to locate the tumor (if there is one) and measure its size.

• Biopsy - Next, we do a biopsy to relieve any pressure caused by the tumor and confirm the diagnosis of medulloblastoma.

• Subtyping - We also routinely do subtyping of medulloblastomas. The different subtypes of medulloblastomas are treated differently with special drugs. Subtyping can help select the best treatment for your child.

What causes pediatric medulloblastoma?

The exact cause of medulloblastoma in most children is not known. Some children with medulloblastomas have a “genetic predisposition,” which means their genes put them at higher risk of developing this and related cancers. Since families share many of the same genes, other family members may also be at higher risk of certain cancers. If a genetic predisposition to cancer is found, we may recommend that parents and siblings have genetic testing.

How is pediatric medulloblastoma treated?

We adjust our approach depending on your child’s age and their type of tumor. Treatments may include:

• Surgery - We remove as much of the tumor as possible when we do the biopsy. This can reduce your child’s symptoms and give us a head start on treatment.

• Radiation - For children age 3 or older, we can treat their tumor with radiation therapy. We offer both X-ray radiation and proton therapy, which is more precise and has fewer side effects. Radiation can cause problems for children under age 3, so we usually use different treatments for kids in that age group.

• Chemotherapy - This involves using medicine to kill the cancer cells. Our team includes chemotherapy experts who know the right doses to destroy the cancer while keeping side effects to a minimum.

• Targeted therapies - We can treat some types of medulloblastoma with specific drugs that target the genes that help those tumors grow. This may stop the tumor from getting bigger, shrink it or kill it all the way. Children's Health does a DNA test on all tumors, to see if a targeted therapy will work.