Klin Onkol 2006; 19(2): 130-137.
Summary
Medulloblastoma represents the most common malignant brain tumor of childhood. This tumor is uniquely sensitive to chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but successful surgical removal remains an important part of therapy. A great progress in the treatment of medulloblastoma has been made in the last decades thanks to improved neurosurgical techniques, radiotherapy and optimized adjuvant chemotherapy. Medulloblastoma is currently stratified into high and standard (average) risk categories depending on clinical and radiological factors. The developing era of molecular biology is bringing new possibilities of prognostic factors identification and riskadapted therapy. The treatment of average-risk medulloblastoma has achieved a substantial improvement, allowing focusing of efforts on the reduction of adverse treatment effects (especially radiotherapy). Children with high-risk disease (mainly infants) have still an unsatisfactory prognosis, despite the introduction of high-dose chemotherapy to the therapeutic options. Many clinical trials focus on newly defined molecular targets and specific drugs with capability to hit these adequate signal pathways (so-called molecular targeted therapy).
