More independent study is needed into the biology of children's brain tumours if effective treatments are to be developed, experts at The University of Nottingham have said in a leading journal.
Dr Paul Scotting and Professor David Walker, in the University’s Children’s Brain Tumour Research Centre, along with colleague Dr Giorgio Perilongo of the University Hospital of Padua, argue that, because the biology, genetics and environment of childhood solid tumours (CSTs) set them apart from adult tumours, the development of more specialised treatments should be the highest priority.
Their opinions are published in the Perspectives section of June’s edition of Nature Reviews Cancer.
Dr Paul Scotting said: “Childhood tumours grow in immature tissues, allowing them to develop in a way that doesn’t happen in the adult body. Cells may not need to be as abnormal to become cancerous as cells that cause adult cancers. The flip side is that CSTs might actually be more susceptible to therapies as long as we are using treatments that are specifically tailored to them.”
In Western countries, cancers that occur in children under 15 years of age account for around two per cent of all cancer cases. Leukaemia accounts for roughly one-third of childhood cancers, 13 per cent are lymphomas and the rest (about half of all childhood cancers) are CSTs. Estimated three-year survival rates in Western countries have steadily risen from the 1960s and now exceed 80 per cent. However, the treatments used to treat CSTs can have devastating long-term effects for the young patients and their families.
As mainstream cancer therapies such as radiotherapy and chemotherapy - usually developed to treat adult cancers - target cells that are dividing out of control to create tumours, they can have severe consequences for children’s organs, which are still growing.
The greatest problem is caused when such crude treatments are used for conditions affecting the central nervous system and the brain - the treatments indiscriminately kill both cancerous and healthy cells, disrupting the development of the growing tissues and often leading to long-term disability for the young patient.
The experts are calling for more research into the biology of CST’s to develop targeted therapies that will kill the cancerous cells, while leaving the healthy cells unaffected and able to continue developing normally.
Dr Scotting added: “In children, whenever you are trying to treat them and their tissues are still growing there are going to be huge problems.
“The only way to push research forward in this area is if we learn more about the nature of children’s cancers and understand how the cancer cells work. The key is to use a mechanism within the cell itself.