Salvage therapy after postoperative chemotherapy for primary brain tumors in infants and very young children

✍ Scribed by Paul G. Fisher; Michael N. Needle; Avital Cnaan; Huaqing Zhao; J. Russell Geyer; Patricia T. Molloy; Joel W. Goldwein; Alisa B. Herman-Liu; Peter C. Phillips

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 106 KB
• Volume: 83
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0008-543X
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-0142(19980801)83:3<566::aid-cncr27>3.0.co;2-t

✦ Synopsis

A trend toward the use of prolonged postoperative chemotherapy, with radiotherapy deferred until relapse, has emerged for very young children with malignant brain tumors. This study was undertaken to determine the failure patterns among infants who receive such treatment and to evaluate their responses to first salvage therapy, particularly radiotherapy, after postoperative chemotherapy.

METHODS.

A retrospective cohort was assembled, which comprised all children younger than 36 months with biopsy-proven malignant brain tumors diagnosed during the years 1987-1993 at 3 pediatric oncology referral centers. Fifty-eight children were treated with postoperative chemotherapy without irradiation, 40 of whom experienced relapse of their malignancy. These patients' charts were reviewed for failure patterns. Thirty-five of these children received salvage therapy.

Statistical and survival analysis with the Cox proportional hazards regression model was performed.