April 9, 1999
Three Harvard-affiliated hospitals unite to join National Initiative On Pediatric Brain Tumors
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital, in conjunction with Massachusetts General Hospital, have been selected as founding members of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, a National Cancer Institute-sponsored program to speed the development of innovative, technically advanced treatments for childhood brain malignancies.
Dana-Farber, Children's, and Mass General - all affiliates of Harvard Medical School - will comprise one of nine academic medical centers nationwide to be part of the new network. The sites were chosen by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for the excellence of their research into childhood brain tumors and the range of their experience in treating patients with the disease.
The project is being launched with a five-year, $2 million-a-year grant from the NCI to the nine members of the consortium.
"The new consortium will enhance our ability to share ideas and new approaches to pediatric brain tumor treatment with colleagues across the country," says Mark Kieran, M.D., Ph.D., clinical director of pediatric medical neuro-oncology in Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic, and co-principal investigator of the Harvard group's participation in the project. Kieran and Nancy Tarbell, M.D., Head, pediatric radiation oncology unit at Mass General, serve as co-investigators of the Harvard-affiliated center.
"The collaboration means that we can enroll larger numbers of patients in clinical trials and determine more quickly whether new treatments are effective," Kieran continues. "By pooling the human and technological resources of nine leading centers in pediatric brain cancer research and care, we'll be in a strong position to make new advances against this disease."
Childhood brain tumors represent one of the greatest challenges that physicians face. Not only have survival rates for such tumors risen more slowly than for any other type of childhood cancer, but even among cured patients, problems such as learning disorders, physical disabilities and behavioral problems are common.
While approximately 60 percent of children with brain tumors survive at least five years from the time of diagnosis, this figure has improved only slightly in the past 25 years.
"This consortium opens exciting opportunities for putting innovative treatments and techniques into clinical use," says Tarbell. "Scientific advances in the understanding of the basic, underlying mechanisms of brain tumors in children, along with the introduction of new treatment technologies, increases our ability to make major strides against this disease in the years ahead."
Emerging strategies for treating childhood brain tumors include new biological therapies and chemotherapy regimens as well as novel neurosurgical procedures and radiation therapy procedures. Among treatments in development are drugs targeted at specific proteins in malignant cells, radiosurgery techniques, drugs that modulate the immune system to fight tumors, new ways of delivering drugs directly to tumors, and new approaches to gene therapy.
Investigators participating in the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium will meet later this month to decide on a research agenda and priorities. The consortium is expected to enroll 80 to 100 patients a year in three to four clinical trials, with the first opening for enrollment in September. The Boston-based collaborative will be part of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center currently in development.
Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston,-- Principal Investigator: Mark Kieran, M.D.
Duke University Medical Center, Durham--Principal Investigator: Henry Friedman, M.D.
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston--Principal Investigator: Marc Horowitz, M.D
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis--Principal Investigator: Larry Kun, M.D.
The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia--Principal Investigator: Peter Phillips, M.D.
Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh--Principal Investigator: Ian Pollack, M.D.
University of California, San Francisco--Principal Investigator: Michael Prados, M.D
Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center--Seattle--Principal Investigator: Russell Geyer, MD.
Children's National Medical Center, Washington, D.C.-- Principal Investigator: Roger Packer, M.D.
