Oncology Scan: Reirradiation in Pediatric Patients With Recurrent Brain Tumors: A Last Hope, But One With Greatly Feared Consequences

Over the decades there has been a trend to use radiation therapy less frequently for treatment of pediatric brain tumors (1). The effort to avoid radiation is not the result of a lack of efficacy but rather a fear of long-term side effects of radiation, including neurocognitive delay and other life-altering consequences. For many pediatric brain tumors, omission of radiation therapy significantly compromises tumor control rates; thus, radiation therapy remains an essential component of first-line therapy for many pediatric brain tumors, including medulloblastoma, diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), high-grade gliomas, germ cell tumors, and ependymoma.

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