This week's artwork was donated by Gavin, a pediatric cancer patient who received treatment at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia . Medulloblastoma is the most common brain tumor of childhood. Radiation of medulloblastoma includes the entire brain and spinal cord.
Chemotherapy often lasts a year or more.
These treatments, as well as aggressive surgery to remove the entire tumor, hold considerable side effects including neuro-psychiatric deficits, short stature and hormonal imbalances later in life. Attempts have been made to define prognostic factors for children afflicted with this disease, with the idea that low risk patients may have their tumors cured with less aggressive treatment strategies, thereby avoiding the debilitating side effects. To date, the two most consistent prognostic factors reported are age and total resection of the tumor. In fact, medulloblastoma patients are divided into two groups high risk and low risk. The latter group is defined as children over 3 or 4 years of age who have had their tumors entirely removed and have no evidence of tumor spread.