Successful Use of Dose Dense Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy and Sodium Valproate with Minimal Toxicity in an Infant with Medulloblastoma in Extremely Poor General Condition.

BACKGROUND

Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in children. Infants are in the high-risk category. Complete surgical resection is the single most important determinant of prognosis and survival in nonmetastatic disease. Infants with large primaries after incomplete resection/biopsy and poor general condition have bad prognosis. They are considered poor candidates for intensive chemotherapy involving high dose methotrexate/autologous stem cell transplantation as they are often unable to tolerate these aggressive regimens.

CASE DESCRIPTION

The patient, withinfantile medulloblastoma, was supposed to have complete resection but only a biopsy could be attempted because of increased tumor vascularity. He was in very poor general condition after surgery and his parents declined aggressive chemotherapy and shunt surgery. He was given dose dense neo-adjuvant chemotherapy along with the histone deactylase inhibitor valproate for 5 cycles, with minimal toxicity, after which the tumor was resected. The examination of the resected specimen revealed a complete pathologic response. He then received a total of 18 cycles of chemotherapy and valproate to complete 1 year of systemic treatment. The child is now 6.5 years of age, disease-free, without evidence of any neurocognitive or developmental abnormalities.

CONCLUSIONS

We suggest that the role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy should be explored in patients with infantile medulloblastoma in whom upfront complete resection is not possible, considering the gratifying results obtained in our case.