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KIDS BRAIN CANCER AFTER EFFECTS

It’s something no parent or child should have to face: pediatric brain tumors. Fortunately there are great advances being made in treating pediatric brain tumors, which get more effective with each year. But the downside is that the aftereffects of pediatric brain treatment can be severe and linger into adulthood.

Throughout the last decade, the so called five-year survival rate for children with brain tumors has improved steadily, and is around 70% now, which is quite good. But with the increasing numbers of kids living beyond their tumors, there’s now more attention focused on their quality of life. Many continue to suffer the ill effects of their treatment.

Four years ago, Esther Silberstein was diagnosed with a brain tumor. “I was very short. I hadn’t grown in three years and I was very skinny. I weighed 35 pounds when I was nine,” says Esther.

Surgery removed the tumor, and was followed by radiation therapy. “I had to have radiation everyday for two months during the summer, and then I couldn’t return to school for something like 3 months. Academically I was left far behind,” reports Esther.

Fortunately as a result of the intensive treatment Esther now only suffers some lingering symptoms. “Sometimes I have to miss school because I have a headache,” says Esther.

According to new research out of the Stanford School of Medicine, many kids don’t fare so well. Nearly one third of former pediatric brain tumor patients require special education services, and many more have subtle thinking problems.

In fact, as adults, survivors of pediatric brain tumors are at an increased risk for unemployment and an inability to drive. The root cause for this is the treatment they receive for pediatric brain tumors.

Dr. Mark Souweidane, a neurosurgeon at Weill-Cornell Medical Center, says, “Radiation therapy affects almost the entire brain. We know that in children less than two or three years of age, radiation therapy severely affects the potential of the brain to develop normally.”
The survey suggests that as these children grow older, they become more aware of their differences and tend to be more socially isolated.

The pediatric brain tumor patients tend to suffer several symptoms typical for cancer patients, such as headaches, pain and nausea. And even though they may have a normal lifespan, their symptoms do not show any considerable improvement.

The study showed those kids getting less radiation with chemo did better than kids only getting radiation therapy. “What clinicians have done is to reduce the overall dose of radiation therapy and constrain the field so that less area of the brain is involved in radiation therapy. They then supplement that treatment with chemotherapy,” states Dr. Souweidane.

Pediatric oncologists have been struggling for years to find the precise way to give the patient as much radiation as they need to cure the cancer but no more.

The findings validate long-standing concerns about using radiation treatments in children’s developing brains. The hope of this study is to propel the field to the discovery of newer, more effective but less damaging treatments of pediatric brain tumors, and brain tumors in general.
Hopefully, they will help kids like Esther live a normal life.

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