There's new hope for children with brain cancer now that Canadian researchers have identified a family of eight genes that may be responsible for causing the mutation.
Brain tumours - most commonly, medulloblastoma - are the leading cause of cancer-related death in children. And although many patients can now survive, they are often left with severe physical and neurological disabilities from both the cancer and the treatment.
"It's a devastating disease. It's got about a 60 per cent five-year survival rate. So almost half the children who get this disease will die," noted Sick Kids neurosurgeon and lead author of a new study, Dr. Michael Taylor.
"And of the ones that survive, most of them will have severe long term effects from the treatment, which includes surgery, radiation of the entire brain and spine, and then intensive chemotherapy."
Dr. Taylor's lab gathered more than 200 surgically-removed tumours from around the globe. Then, the scientists used new technologies to map the mutations within the disease.
Amazingly, they discovered eight of the mutated genes belong to a family responsible for turning off growth-promoting genes once the brain has stopped maturing. When the genes do not work as they should, growth does not stop and brain cancer results.
PhD student and author, Paul Northcott, is optimistic about what this means for the future of cancer research.
"Given adequate resources, we could discover all of the important gene mutations in childhood brain cancer within the next five years, and then move on to figuring out how to target those mutations to improve cure rates and decrease complications."
The findings were published in the online journal Nature Genetics.
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