Bagchi Aditi, Dhanda Sandeep K, Dunphy Paige, Sioson Edgar, Robinson Giles W
1Division of Neuro-Oncology, Department of Oncology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee.
2Department of Computational Biology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee.
J Natl Compr Canc Netw. 2023 Aug 28;21(10):1097-1105. doi: 10.6004/jnccn.2023.7024.
Medulloblastoma in infants and young children is a major challenge to treat because craniospinal irradiation (CSI), a cornerstone of therapy for older children, is disproportionately damaging to very young children. As a result, trials have attempted to delay, omit, and replace this therapy. Although success has been limited, the approach has not been a complete failure. In fact, this approach has cured a significant number of children with medulloblastoma. However, many children have endured intensive regimens of chemotherapy only to experience relapse and undergo salvage treatment with CSI, often at higher doses and with worse morbidity than they would have initially experienced. Recent advancements in molecular diagnostics have proven that response to therapy is biologically driven. Medulloblastoma in infants and young children is divided into 2 molecular groups: Sonic Hedgehog (SHH) and group 3 (G3). Both are chemotherapy-sensitive, but only the SHH medulloblastomas are reliably cured with chemotherapy alone. Moreover, SHH can be molecularly parsed into 2 groups: SHH-1 and SHH-2, with SHH-2 showing higher cure rates with less intensive chemotherapy and SHH-1 requiring more intensive regimens. G3 medulloblastoma, on the other hand, has a near universal relapse rate after chemotherapy-only regimens. This predictability represents a significant breakthrough and affords oncologists the ability to properly risk-stratify therapy in such a way that the most curative and least toxic therapy is selected. This review examines the treatment of medulloblastoma in infants and young children, discusses the molecular advancements, and proposes how to use this information to structure the future management of this disease.
婴幼儿髓母细胞瘤的治疗是一项重大挑战,因为对于大龄儿童而言作为治疗基石的全脑全脊髓放疗(CSI),对非常年幼的儿童却有着不成比例的损害。因此,一些试验试图推迟、省略并替代这种治疗方法。尽管成效有限,但这种方法并非完全失败。事实上,这种方法已经治愈了相当数量的髓母细胞瘤患儿。然而,许多儿童接受了强化化疗方案,结果却复发了,随后不得不接受CSI挽救治疗,而且这种挽救治疗往往剂量更高,发病率也比他们最初接受治疗时更严重。分子诊断学的最新进展已证明,治疗反应是由生物学因素驱动的。婴幼儿髓母细胞瘤可分为两个分子亚组:音猬因子(SHH)亚组和3组(G3)。这两个亚组对化疗都敏感,但只有SHH亚组的髓母细胞瘤仅通过化疗就能可靠地治愈。此外,SHH亚组还可在分子层面进一步细分为两个亚组:SHH-1和SHH-2,其中SHH-2通过强度较低的化疗就能有较高的治愈率,而SHH-1则需要更强化的治疗方案。另一方面,G3亚组髓母细胞瘤在仅接受化疗方案后几乎普遍复发。这种可预测性是一项重大突破,使肿瘤学家有能力以一种方式对治疗进行合理的风险分层,从而选择最具治愈性且毒性最小的治疗方法。这篇综述探讨了婴幼儿髓母细胞瘤的治疗,讨论了分子方面的进展,并提出如何利用这些信息构建该疾病未来的治疗策略。