Recurrence after gross-total resection of low-grade pediatric brain tumors: the frequency and timing of postoperative imaging.

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In this month’s article in Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics, Mark Kieran and colleagues studied the frequency of brain imaging (through MRI) a patient receives to evaluate how often tumors recurred.  They found that at either 2 or 5 years of recurrence-free survival there were no clinical symptoms or mortality observed in the patient population studied, proposing a reduction in the number of MRI scans a patient receives from 10 to 5, thus reducing the psychological and financial impact of post-operative care.

Targeted treatment for sonic hedgehog-dependent medulloblastoma

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2This month’s featured publication by Dr. Kieran discusses the medulloblastoma subgroup with activations of the sonic hedgehog pathway, the preclinical data currently known and the development of novel therapies to overcome chemoresistance.

Targeting BRAF in Pediatric Brain Tumors

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PET-imageIn this e-book chapter, Dr Kieran discusses the signalling molecule BRAF, and how mutations in BRAF can cause pediatric brain cancer.   Also explained is how our scientists are beginning to understand the biology of BRAF signalling, and how these discoveries can be exploited for new therapy targets.

Pediatric low-grade gliomas: How modern biology reshapes the clinical field

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2In this review article, Drs. Stiles, Segal, Beroukhim, Ligon and Kieran discuss low grade glioma clinical features, current therapies and new genomic discoveries, and how these most recent findings can be applied to diagnose and treat low grade tumors in the future.

Long-term outcome of 4,040 children diagnosed with pediatric low-grade gliomas: An analysis of the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database, Pediatric Blood and Cancer

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This paper, published in Pediatric Blood and Cancer, is a collaboration between work carried out in the laboratory of Rameen Beroukhim, MD, PhD and clinical data from Mark Kieran, MD, PhD. The researchers examined the long-term survival rates of adults who had low-grade gliomas as children. Here they show that patients with previous disease have an excellent long-term survival outcome, and treatment strategies should focus on disease management with minimal toxicity.

Molecular imaging of drug transit through the blood-brain barrier with MALDI mass spectrometry imaging, Nature Scientific Reports

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Shown in this image is a tumor section from a mouse treated with an experimental drug, using MALDI MSI spectrometry, the drug can be visualized inside of the tumor.

Shown in this image is a tumor section from a mouse treated with an experimental drug, using MALDI MSI spectrometry, the drug can be visualized inside of the tumor.

In this exciting paper published in Nature Scientific Reports, PLGA Program faculty member Nathalie Agar, Ph.D. describes a novel method to visualize drug penetration into the brain without labeling, using MALDI MSI spectrometry imaging.