Medulloblastoma

Brain tumors can cause a variety of symptoms in children based on their age and the location of the tumor. Keep in mind that medulloblastoma symptoms may resemble other more common conditions or medical problems. Always consult your child's physician for a diagnosis.

While your child may experience symptoms differently, common medulloblastoma symptoms include:

• headache (generally upon awakening in the morning)
• nausea and vomiting
• fatigue
• lethargy
• imbalance and lack of coordination
• problems with motor skills (such as writing)
• neck tilt or double vision
• changes in personality or behavior
• seizures

Rarely, medulloblastoma can spread into the central nervous system or the spinal canal, and your child may experience:

• loss of strength in the lower extremities
• back pain
• bowl and bladder control issues
• difficulty walking

In most cases, the cause of medulloblastoma is not known. In some cases, medulloblastoma is associated with certain inherited diseases, including:

• Li-Fraumeni syndrome
• nevoid basal cell carcinoma syndrome (Gorlin syndrome)
• turcot syndrome

It’s important to understand that these and other brain tumors most often occur with no known cause. There’s nothing that could have been done or avoided that would have prevented the tumor from developing.

Your child’s physician may order a number of different tests to determine the type and location of the tumor. In addition to a physical exam, medical history, and neurological exam, diagnostic procedures for medulloblastoma may include:

• magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
• surgical resection
• histological diagnosis

If your child has medulloblastoma, your child’s physician also will perform a lumbar puncture, or spinal tap. However, this will be performed at a time after the initial surgery is completed. In addition, there may be other diagnostic tests that your doctor will discuss with you.

Your child's physician will determine a specific course of medulloblastoma treatment based on several factors, including:

• your child's age, overall health, and medical history
• type, location, and size of the tumor
• the extent of the disease
• your child's tolerance for specific medications, procedures, or therapies
• how your child's doctors expect the disease to behave

There are a number of treatments we may recommend. Some of them help to treat the tumor while others are intended to address complications of the disease or side effects of the treatment.

In all cases, a multidisciplinary team is necessary to optimize care. The team may include members from neurosurgery, neuro-oncology, neurology, radiation oncology, and stem cell transplantation, as well as psychology/social work, nutrition, physical and occupational therapy, and the school liaison program.

Treatment may include (alone or in combination) endoscopic third ventriculostomy (ETV) or ventriculo-peritoneal shunt (VP shunt) tumor in the brain can cause blockage of cerebral spinal fluid, the fluid that bathes the brain and spinal cord. If this occurs, our pediatric neurosurgeons may perform a procedure to relieve symptoms of hydrocephalus, the build-up of fluid, which causes increased pressure within the skull.

In an endoscopic third ventriculostomy, surgeons create a small hole that allows fluid to flow around the blockage and into the spinal column. About 90 percent of children with symptoms of hydrocephalus will undergo this procedure.

In some cases, children may have an alternative procedure in which a tube is installed to drain excess fluid into the abdomen (VP shunt).

Surgery

Surgery may be needed to treat hydrocephalus and to remove the tumor. Research has shown that the more completely the tumor is removed, the better the outcome may be. Therefore, your child's surgeon will remove as much of the tumor as safely as possible, while avoiding neurological side effects.

Radiation therapy

This treatment uses high-energy waves from a specialized machine to damage or kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. Your child's physician will work with pediatric radiation oncologists to determine the optimal dose of radiation that will effectively treat the tumor while avoiding side effects as much as possible.

Chemotherapy

This is a group of drugs that interfere with the cancer cell's ability to grow. Different groups of chemotherapy drugs work in different ways to fight cancer cells and shrink tumors. Your child may receive chemotherapy orally (as a pill to swallow), intramuscularly (as an injection into the muscle or fat tissue), intravenously (as a direct injection into the bloodstream) or intrathecally (as a direct injection into the spinal column through a needle).

What are possible issues after surgery?

After the operation, your child may have difficulties with coordination, weakness in his extremities, and problems with balance. These typically resolve over a course of several weeks. Our physical and occupational therapists will work with your child to treat these issues.

"Posterior fossa mutism" is a condition that may occur after surgery. Within 24 hours, the child develops an inability to speak, has problems with balance and has difficulty with swallowing. The condition may range from mild to severe. The cause of this condition is not entirely known, but it is unique to this area of the brain.

In about 15 percent of the children diagnosed with medulloblastoma, hydrocephalus may develop, requiring a procedure to drain spinal fluid. These procedures are performed by our pediatric neurosurgeons.

Children with medulloblastoma are treated at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center through our Medulloblastoma Program. Our pediatric brain tumor specialists provide a unique degree of specialization across many disciplines, which translates into advanced treatment options for children with medulloblastoma. We offer technological advances such as the intra-operative MRI, which allows our pediatric neurosurgeons to obtain an MRI immediately in the operating room before the operation is complete and remove as much of the tumor as possible. We also offer expert diagnosis and consultation by neuropathologists who use advanced molecular diagnostic testing with access to unique clinical trials from our own investigators, the Children’s Oncology Group, and the Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Consortium.

Because brain tumors in children, including medulloblastoma, behave differently than those in adults, it's important for families to seek a pediatric center with specific expertise in treating childhood brain tumors.