Who can enter
- Children and adolescents with newly diagnosed high-risk medulloblastoma
- Age: 3 years and older (In the Netherlands 4 years and older)
Goal
The aim of this study is to improve the survival of patients with high-risk medulloblastoma and to reduce the side effects of treatment in the short and long term. For this purpose, different treatments are compared with each other in this study.
Background
Medulloblastoma is a malignant tumor, a type of cancer, that originates in the cerebellum. The tumor arises from primitive cells that should have developed into brain cells but for some reason did not.
Normally, there is a balance between growing and inhibiting the growth of the cells in the brain. In the cells of a medulloblastoma, this balance is disturbed. There is growth of the cells, but the natural brake of growth has disappeared. The cause of this is not known.
Medulloblastoma is a rare disease in children and is usually detected in children aged five to six years old, but medulloblastoma also occurs in younger and older children. There are several types (subtypes) of medulloblastoma. A high-risk medulloblastoma is called this way because there are high-risk characteristics such as metastases of the tumor. Treatment for high-risk medulloblastoma begins with surgery. This is followed by radiation and medicines against the tumor. The drugs against the tumor are called chemotherapy.
In the past, studies have been done in various countries to cure more children. This has already been quite successful. In some countries this has been achieved by giving more radiation and in other countries by giving more chemotherapy.
With the different treatments, about the same number of children survive. We do not know exactly which treatment is best. We also do not know which treatment has the least side effects. That is what we want to find out in this study, in which we compare different ways of treatment.
By drawing lots, each child will be assigned one of the treatments. This way we get the most honest answer as to which treatment is best.