Adult cancer drugs show promise against an aggressive childhood brain tumor
Thursday, March 27, 2014 - 14:00
in Health & Medicine
The quest to improve survival of children with a high-risk brain tumor has investigators to two drugs already used to treat adults with breast, pancreatic, lung and other cancers. Researchers demonstrated that the drugs pemetrexed and gemcitabine killed cells from mouse and human brain tumors, called group 3 medulloblastoma, growing in the laboratory. Medulloblastoma is diagnosed in about 400 children annually in the U.S., making it the most common pediatric brain tumor.