Nature Sub-Journal: A rare secondary cancer in children

As a pediatric oncologist, Adam Green, MD, thinks this is one of the most heartbreaking things: the children have overcome their own cancer, only to discover an incurable brain tumor five years later.

Usually "particularly miserable, because at this time their adolescents, or their young people are working hard to advance their lives after dealing with cancer, they may still deal with some sequelae treatment," said Greene, a member of the Copper Cancer Center practice Colorado Children's Hospital

A rare killer

This particular type of brain tumor is caused by brain radiation therapy for other cancers (the most common is brain cancer)

Processing patient samples collected by the Adams Morgan Foundation in the past ten years of the Children’s Brain Tumor Research Project at the University of Colorado School of Medicine’s green and graduate student John DeSisto’s analysis platform for the past four years, using DNA and RNA sequences to discover how they differ from the “new” "Invasive" glioma or glioma does not respond to brain radiation

"We found that the mutations in these tumors are very different from those of neonatal advanced gliomas

The role of DNA repair

Through RNA sequencing, Green and his team examined more than 30 tumor samples, and finally divided them into two subgroups based on which genes in the samples were turned off or turned on

He said: "We believe that some patients may have problems with their DNA.

Build an alliance to seek life-prolonging treatment

The researchers also tested some FDA-approved chemotherapy drugs in two RIG subgroups and found that some drugs appeared to be effective against RIG

Green said: "We think that for these two different types of high-grade gliomas, the treatments for RIGs and neoplastic tumors may be very different

In the end, Green hopes that this research can bring better treatments to patients with higher risk of RIGs or those who have developed RIGs, so that the number of young patients who die from these secondary tumors will begin to decrease

He said: “There are other types of secondary cancers in children that are caused by previous cancer treatments, such as leukemia caused by chemotherapy or sarcomas caused by radiotherapy