Gary Tye, M.D., Virginia Commonwealth University In my practice as a pediatric neurosurgeon I see children afflicted with brain tumors on a regular basis, either for surgery or in the many required follow-up visits. Despite our best standards of care, many of these children, assuming they survive their cancer, may suffer severe developmental and cognitive …
Sameer Keole, M.D. Medical Director, ProCure Proton Therapy Center in Oklahoma City When a child is diagnosed with cancer it is devastating for the entire family. The good news is that cure rates for childhood cancer are at nearly 80 percent thanks to ongoing research that has improved the diagnosis and treatment of pediatric cancers. …
Brendan Price, Department of Radiation Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Pediatric high-grade gliomas (pHGG) have few treatment options and most children diagnosed only survive for 1-2 years. Identifying new treatments is therefore of the highest priority. Work in the lab is focused on understanding how these brain tumors arise, with the …
Introduction I will divide advances in surgical technique over the past several decades into 4 major categories: greater visual magnification, improved aids to navigation, better functional brain mapping, and more precise tumor destruction. Magnification The operating neurosurgical microscope has been used since the 1950’s when Dr. RMP Donaghy of the University of Vermont was active …
Michael X. Repka, M.D., Vice Chair for Clinical Practice, Wilmer Eye Institute, Professor of Ophthalmology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD 21287-9028 Childhood brain tumors present with visual symptoms about 50% of the time. Additionally, children will develop visual symptoms and/or signs during and after treatment. Such signs may become …
Kevin Bielamowicz Poor outcomes for children with high grade glioma (HGG) warrant novel therapeutic strategies, and redirecting immune cells can achieve this aim while minimizing side effects to normal cells. Using mathematical modeling in a group of brain tumor samples, we discovered substantial variation between individual cells within the same tumor as well as between …
Allison Martin, M.D. Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in children. In cases of relapsed or refractory disease there is no known curative therapy. To address this question we have generated fetal mouse brain cells that mimic the most aggressive phenotype of medulloblastoma called “anaplastic” when they are placed into the cerebellum of …
Bike TrAle Brewing held its first charity Guest Bartending event to benefit The Childhood Brain Tumor Foundation. The CBTF is a Germantown, MD based charity that supports families and raises funds for grants and research. Tom and Marjie Blassey along with their niece, musician Emma Rowley, donated their time and tips to raise a grand …
2016 Summary Principal investigators: Dimitris Placantonakis and Jayeeta Basu, NYU School of Medicine Glioblastoma (GBM) is a deadly brain tumor affecting children and adults. The biology of GBM is not well understood and, as a consequence, treatments are limited and ineffective. GBM grows rapidly and invades normal brain tissue, but never metastasizes to other organs. …
