Brain Tumours - Cancer Research UK

Wobbling molecules help scientists study brain tumours in children

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Kat Arney

Advances in imaging techniques are helping to analyse childhood brain tumours

Despite the huge progress that’s been made in treating many types of childhood cancer, brain tumours are lagging behind. Although these diseases are relatively rare – and the chances of surviving have increased over the past few decades – brain and spinal cord tumours are the leading cause of cancer death in children, claiming more than one hundred young lives every year.

One of the major challenges in treating these tumours in children is working out what’s going on deep inside their growing brains. There are many different types of brain tumour, each requiring different treatment approaches and with varying chances of survival. But despite advances in imaging, such as MRI scanning, that help doctors see inside the ‘black box’ of the skull, it’s still hard to figure out exactly what sort of tumour a child has without resorting to invasive surgery.

In two related papers, published earlier this year in the European Journal of Cancer, Professor Andrew Peet and his team at the University of Birmingham have taken a step forward in developing a non-invasive technique that could help doctors to diagnose childhood brain tumours more accurately before surgery, as well as helping them choose the best way to treat them. And Cancer Research UK’s support, through our Imaging Programme, was essential for making it happen.

Let’s take a closer look at what they found.

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The challenge of spotting cancers in children

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Henry Scowcroft

Georgia was diagnosed with Wilms’ tumour

One Sunday evening in 2008, after giving her one-year-old daughter a bath, Ruth Hillman noticed Georgia’s tummy felt firmer than usual.

Alarm bells began to ring.

By Wednesday, after seeing several different doctors, Ruth and her husband Ben were told Georgia had a tumour. Further tests showed that it was a Wilms’ tumour – a form of kidney cancer – and Georgia needed intensive treatment.

Georgia’s story is ultimately a happy one – she’s now a healthy five-year-old, and recently started school. Her treatment – surgery and chemotherapy – means she’s among some 33,000 people alive in the UK today who beat cancer in childhood. Although progress in some cancer types has been slow, overall survival rates are now at an all-time high.

But could they be even higher? In the end, Georgia was diagnosed in time, but others aren’t so fortunate. And, as in adults, cancer treatments in children are generally less effective when the disease is spotted late.

They’re also often more intense. As a result, survivors can have long-term disabilities – and with more lives being saved, this has meant an ever-greater focus on how we manage cancers in the youngest members of society.

The problem is that cancers in children are rare, and their symptoms are hard to tell apart from a whole range of more common problems. The average GP will only ever see a single case in their entire career – if at all. And for parents, they may never suspect that an ache or a pain could be something more sinister than childhood’s day-to-day rough and tumble.

In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the issues surrounding spotting cancers in children, and what’s going on to try to improve things.

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The cost of surviving cancer – a parent’s view

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Jane Redman

Jane, with Amy as a baby

Being told that your child has cancer is every parent’s worst nightmare. But 13 years ago, one of our press officers, Jane Redman, received terrible news – her daughter Amy was diagnosed with a brain tumour.

Here, Jane shares her family’s story – and her vision for the future of childhood cancer research.

Many of us will have read the recent distressing story of Sally Roberts – the mother who went into hiding with her son rather than put him through radiotherapy to his brain and spine to treat a brain tumour. Terrified of the potential side effects of the radiation, she simply ran away. Her son is now having treatment after a legal battle.

The press and social media have been awash with discussion about her refusal to consent to what experts know is her child’s only chance of life. The medical consensus is that without radiotherapy his cancer would be more likely to recur and he would die.

But only those parents who have been in the same position can really understand how hard these decisions are, how brutal the treatment, and how high the costs can sometimes be.

My own daughter Amy had exactly the same type of brain tumour, a medulloblastoma, when she was nine. She had surgery followed by radiotherapy and we still have her; she is 22 now.

While we never seriously entertained the notion of not signing the consent forms for Amy’s treatment, I’m not going to pretend that it was an easy decision. When the crucial moment came to sign, my husband had to pick up the pen because I was paralysed with fear. Did I ever feel like running away? Yes, I fantasised about it daily. Did I ever regret having agreed to treatment? There was a time, yes. I don’t regret it now, but she was so severely disabled initially that I felt we had sentenced her to a non-life out of desperation not to lose her.

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The queen in the hive – scientists find more evidence for cancer stem cells

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Safia Danovi

Researchers are homing in on the ‘stem cells’ that seem to drive some forms of cancer (Image courtesy of Science/AAAS)

Biology has its share of contentious issues, and the existence of cancer ‘stem cells’ – treatment-resistant cells at the heart of a tumour – is certainly controversial.

We’ve written before about these enigmatic cells, but they’ve made the headlines again this week, so we wanted to re-visit the issue.

The headlines appeared thanks to the publication of three exciting research papers in top international journals, Science and Nature, which showed, in beautiful, fluorescent detail, the development of tumours from what look to be some form of ‘stem-like’ cell.

Let’s have a look at what the researchers did, and what it means.

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New insight into how childhood brain tumours develop

Posted on June 8, 2012 by Jo Burch

A recent study gives vital insight into childhood brain tumours

We’ve funded many of the world’s most successful trials of new treatment for children with cancer, and this has contributed to childhood cancer survival rates rising to an all-time high.

But childhood brain tumours remain an area where progress has been slow. We still need to increase our understanding of the fundamental biology that causes brain tumours – only then will we be able to develop more effective treatments in the future.

Thankfully, knowledge in this area is increasing in leaps and bounds, as illustrated by a study published a few weeks ago in the journal Cancer Cell, in which Cancer Research UK scientists played a role.

The study gives us vital insights into how brain tumours develop in children and how we can find better treatments for this devastating type of cancer.

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News digest – curry extract and bowel cancer, infections and cancer, brain tumours and more

Posted on May 12, 2012 by Oliver Childs

It's news time

We launched a clinical trial (press release) to test whether curcumin – an extract from the curry spice turmeric – could improve treatment for advanced bowel cancer. This doesn’t mean curry cures cancer (as we pointed out here), or that people with bowel cancer should take curcumin supplements. But this early-stage trial could help us find out whether curcumin’s promise in the lab could be translated into patient benefit.

Around one in six worldwide cancers – two million new cases every year – are caused by infections, according to a French study published on Wednesday and covered on our news feed and the BBC. Eighty per cent of these cases occur in less developed parts of the world, where measures to prevent and treat infections are not always widely available. (On a related note, it’s worth reading Olly’s post on the ‘blame game’, and this post by Ed Yong, on why we need to be careful about how such stats are explained). Continue reading →

Podcast: redefining breast cancer, tiny brain tumours, bowel cancer progress and more

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Kat Arney

Click on the logo to download the podcast

This month, we hear how a landmark study could revolutionise breast cancer treatment, and take a look at the growing evidence on aspirin and cancer.

We also hear how obesity may be driving rises in kidney and womb cancer rates, while smoking patterns of the past mean that lung cancer continue to rise in women.

Plus, scientists develop the first snap-shot of tiny brain tumours, and we talk to Stephanie Moore MBE about how treatment for bowel cancer has changed since her husband, footballer Bobby Moore, died from the disease.

Listen now through the player below:

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Or click here to download the podcast as an mp3.

Also, the podcast is available on iTunes to subscribe and download for free.

Alternatively, go to the podcast page on our website, where you can hear the show directly through our own Flash player and explore previous shows in the archive. And there’s also a full transcript of the podcast available here.

We hope you enjoy it – please do let us know what you think of the podcast in the comments below, or email us at podcast@cancer.org.uk.

Kat