Chemotherapy of pediatric brain-stem tumors

Forty-five children harboring brain-stem tumors were treated at the University of California, San Francisco, between 1969 and 1979. Pathological diagnoses were made in 19 patients. All patients received radiation therapy (RT). Thirteen patients received chemotherapy before, during, or immediately after RT. Twenty-four patients were treated with chemotherapy at the time of tumor progression, after initial treatment with RT alone. No statistically significant difference in time to tumor progression or survival was found for treatment with chemotherapy as an adjuvant to RT compared to treatment with RT alone followed by chemotherapy administered at the time of tumor progression. There were, however, more long-term survivors in the group that was first treated with chemotherapy at the time of tumor progression. There was no statistically significant correlation between survival and tumor pathology or location, although there were more long-term survivors among patients harboring low-grade gliomas and among patients with tumors confined to the midbrain. The authors documented the response of some brain-stem tumors to chemotherapy; however, cooperative controlled studies will be required to determine the optimum treatment for this disease.