Brain Tumors
Pediatric Low-Grade Astrocytoma (LGA) Program
Primary cancers of the brain are the most common solid tumor of childhood and the leading cause of pediatric cancer death. Made up of over 280 different histologic entities, low-grade gliomas form the largest group of brain tumors in this population. They occur in all locations of the brain and tend to predominate in younger children.
Glioma stem cells
Unlike most other tumors of the central nervous system, pediatric low-grade gliomas have a better prognosis than most tumors, and unlike adult low-grade gliomas, will often arrest their own growth. Because of the heterogeneous location of these tumors, coupled with the young age of many patients and the overall positive prognosis, research efforts have tended to focus on the much more malignant high-grade gliomas where the overall prognosis remains very poor.
But, thanks to a small group of parents who have children afflicted by either a JPA or a fibrillary astrocytoma, and to the efforts of the Pediatric Low Grade Astrocytoma Foundation, a new program has been created at Dana-Farber to focus on low-grade tumors and to discover new and improved targeted therapies that don't risk impairing children's bodies and minds.
The LGA Program — under the direction of Charles Stiles, PhD, and Mark Kieran, MD, PhD — will draw resources, including personnel and technology, from Dana-Farber's pediatric neuro-oncology program, the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, Children's Hospital Boston, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
To learn more about how you might make a donation to contribute to the mission of the LGA Program, please contact Karen Sveda at (617) 632-4007 or Karen_Sveda@dfci.harvard.edu.
