Childhood Brain Tumor Center

Brain tumors are relatively rare in children, occurring in only five of every 100,000 children. Childhood brain tumors can be benign (non-cancerous) or malignant (cancerous), but both types can be life-threatening. It’s worth noting that children with brain tumors often have a better prognosis than adults with a similar condition, and most children and adolescents who are diagnosed with a brain tumor will survive into adulthood.

Brain tumors have traditionally been given names (classified) based on the tumor’s location within the brain and according to how they look under a microscope. However, as scientists learn more about the specific genetic mutations within childhood brain tumors, they are starting to formulate more specific diagnoses, as well as targeted treatments (precision medicine) to treat childhood brain tumors.

At Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, we treat every type of childhood brain tumor, even the most rare brain tumor types and sub-types. Types of brain tumors we treat include:

Choroid plexus tumors

• Choroid plexus tumors

Germ cell tumors of the brain

• Germ cell tumors of the brain
• Germinoma

Glioma
There are four stages or “grades” of gliomas, according to how the cells look under a microscope. Ordered from least severe to most severe, they are:

• Low-grade glioma
• grade I – pilocytic
• grade II – fibrillary
• High-grade glioma
• grade III – anaplastic
• grade IV – Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM)

Gliomas can also be categorized by the type of glial cells involved or where the tumor is within the brain. Glioma diagnoses include:

• Angiocentric glioma
• Astrocytoma
  • Pilocytic astrocytoma
  • Fibrillary astrocytoma
  • Anaplastic astrocytoma
    
• Diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)
• Gliomatosis cerebri
• Gliosarcoma
• Dysembryoplastic neuroepithelial tumor (DNET)
• Ganglioglioma and glial neuronal tumors
• Oligodendroglioma
• Optic nerve glioma
• Pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma (PXA)
• Tectal glioma
• Thalamic and hypothalamic astrocytoma

Neural tumors

• Atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor (ATRT)
• Medulloblastoma
• Neurocytoma
• Primitive neuroectodermal tumors (PNET) and pineoblastoma

Other

• Craniopharyngioma
• Ependymoma and myxopapillary ependymoma
• Meningioma
• Neurofibroma/Plexiform neurofibroma
• Schwannoma (Neurilemoma)
• Spinal cord tumors

It is important that children with brain tumors be treated at a specialized pediatric brain tumor center. The types of brain tumors most common in children are not the same as those most common in adults. Childhood brain tumors frequently appear in different locations within the brain and behave differently than brain tumors in adults.