Research into children’s brain tumours

Researchers are interested in the diagnosis and treatment of brain tumours. There are a number of clinical trials for people to join in the UK. And many children and young people with brain tumours have their treatment as part of a clinical trial.

Individual trials close when enough people have joined. There might then be a period of time before the results are available. New trials then open based on the lessons learned.

Here is some of the research that is happening in the UK. Some of the trials mentioned may no longer be recruiting children but the researchers are still following them up and collecting the results.

Diagnosing brain tumours

Getting diagnosed

Researchers are looking into how to diagnose brain tumours earlier and more accurately.

HeadSmart is a campaign providing health professionals and the public with up to date information on:

• the symptoms of brain tumours

• what investigations or scans to do

The average time for a child to be diagnosed with a brain tumour has fallen from over 14 weeks to just under 7 weeks. Doctors and researchers want to continue to reduce this time.

Researchers are also interested in the ways teenagers and young people are diagnosed with cancer. The aim of the study is to identify possible delays in diagnosing cancer in teenagers and young adults. Finding any delays and the cause of delays will help to improve the way we look after teenagers and young adults with cancer in the future.

Scans

A team are looking into improving MRI scanning techniques to help diagnose brain tumours in children and young people.

A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan is one of the tests children and young people have to diagnose and check how well treatment is working. This is for many types of cancer including brain tumours. This scan uses magnetism to build up a picture of the inside of the body. It can tell the doctors where in the body the tumour is and how big it is.

Functional imaging is similar to an MRI scan but uses a number of techniques. Some studies suggest that functional imaging may be able to give information about the tumour, how quickly it is growing and whether certain treatments will work. This team of researchers are aiming to find out more.

Researching treatment for children’s brain tumours

Researchers are looking at how to improve treatment for children’s brain tumours. This includes improving treatments we already use. And seeing if new treatments work better than those we already have.

Surgery

Researchers are looking at the amount of information you and your child have before surgery. And how this affects the time in hospital and your experience of it. This might include:

• more information about what the experience might be like

• how long the team expect your child to stay in hospital

• input from a dedicated discharge coordination team

Other research wants to find out why some children who have tumours of the posterior fossa have problems with speech and emotional problems after brain surgery. So, in the future the treatment team can work to prevent this.

Improving treatment with palladium

A team is studying the potential of putting palladium beads into the brain during surgery. Palladium is a type of metal. The researchers think that this might help target the chemotherapy to the brain tumour. The palladium beads start the chemotherapy working once it reaches the tumour. So after surgery, people would have a drug which is only activated by the palladium beads.

This is early stage research in the laboratory. But doctors hope in the future people might be able to have higher doses of chemotherapy after surgery.

Research into treatment for children with a brain tumour that has not gone away with treatment or has come back

Clinical trials for brain tumours that have not gone away or have come back can open and close quickly. Talk to your child’s doctor as they will know of open trials that may be suitable for your child.   

Dabrafenib and trametinib

Other researchers are looking at the targeted cancer drugs dabrafenib and trametinib. Dabrafenib and trametinib are types of cancer growth blockers. They stop signals that cancer cells use to divide and grow. This combination is only likely to work if the brain tumour cells have changes to the BRAF gene. The change to the gene causes it to make an overactive BRAF protein. This makes cells grow and divide too fast.

Researchers want to find out if these drugs are helpful for some children with a brain tumour that has not gone away with treatment or has come back. Also they want to see if these drugs help those with a slow growing glioma (low grade). The other aims are to find out:

• about the side effects of these drugs in children

• how the drugs work in children

• if children are able to take the liquid versions of these drugs if they can’t take the capsules 

eSMART

Researchers are looking for new treatments for children’s cancers when the ​standard treatment​ stops or doesn’t work. Researchers for the eSMART trial are looking at a few different combinations of treatment. Which treatment your child has depends on the changes (mutations) found in the DNA of the sample of cancer tissue. Your child would have one or more of the following:

• targeted cancer drugs

• ​immunotherapy​

• chemotherapy

This trial is looking at different children’s cancer types, including brain tumours.

Find out more about the eSMART trial

Researchers are looking at other targeted cancer drugs in UK clinical trials too. These include:

• larotrectinib

• tovorafenib (known as DAY101)

Research into understanding more about children’s cancer and their treatment

The Children’s Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG) have set up a tissue bank based in Newcastle. With the permission of patients and their families, they are collecting and storing samples of tissue left over from biopsies or they may have a small amount removed during surgery. In some cases they may also collect a small amount of blood. This is for any child or young person with a solid tumour or lymphoma.

The aim of this study is to help researchers understand more about the cancer and its treatment.

Find our more about the CCLG tissue bank

Germ cell tumours

Germ cell tumours develop in germ cells. These are the cells in the body that develop into sperm and eggs. Germ cell tumours most often develop in the ovary or testicle because this is where most germ cells are.

But germ cells can sometimes be left behind in other parts of the body from when you developed in the womb. So these tumours can develop anywhere in your body where there are germ cells. Germ cell tumours that start in the brain and spinal cord are very rare.

Doctors use surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy to treat germ cell tumours. But there are different types of germ cell tumours and doctors want to learn more about the best ways of treating different types.

The aim of this study is to collect information about germ cell tumours that start in the brain. 

Find out more about this germ cell tumour study

How to join a clinical trial

The best person to speak to about your child joining a clinical trial is their hospital consultant.

There might also be a research nurse at their primary treatment centre you can talk to. Or you could chat through the options with your child’s clinical nurse specialist. They will try to answer any specific questions you or your child might have.

You can find more information about clinical trials into diagnosing and treating children’s brain tumours on our clinical trials database.

Find a clinical trial