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Pediatric Neuro-oncology pp 127–138Cite as

Embryonal Brain Tumors

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Abstract

Central nervous system embryonal brain tumors comprise a heterogeneous group which includes medulloblastoma (MB), central nervous system primitive neuroectodermal tumors (CNS-PNETs), and pineoblastoma. They are highly aggressive malignant tumors that often arise in children, are difficult to treat, and cause significant cancer-related morbidity or mortality. There has been tremendous gain in the survival of localized MB in recent years. However, treatment remains highly toxic and punishing and is much less effective for metastatic MB and non-MB PNET while recurrent MB remains largely incurable—underscoring the need to better define diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to this wide spectrum of biological diseases that receive similar multimodal therapeutic regimens. Global genomic studies have now separated embryonal tumors into clinically relevant molecular classes and are paving the way for a new era of biology-informed clinical management of these tumors. This chapter will review current clinical understanding of MB, CNS-PNET, and pineoblastoma and insights into novel therapeutic approaches for these diseases.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Cell Biology/Arthur and Sonia Labatt Brain Tumour Research Centre, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Tiffany Sin Yu Chan B.Sc.

  2. Department of Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Xin Wang B.H.Sc. (Hon). & Michael D. Taylor M.D.

  3. Department of Cell Biology, The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Tara Spence M.Sc. & Annie Huang M.D., Ph.D.

Authors
  1. Tiffany Sin Yu Chan B.Sc.
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  2. Xin Wang B.H.Sc. (Hon).
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  3. Tara Spence M.Sc.
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  4. Michael D. Taylor M.D.
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  5. Annie Huang M.D., Ph.D.
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Annie Huang M.D., Ph.D. .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Pediatrics, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, McMaster Children's Hospital, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

    Katrin Scheinemann

  2. Department of Haematology/Oncology, Garron Family Chair in Childhood Cancer Research, The Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Eric Bouffet

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Chan, T.S.Y., Wang, X., Spence, T., Taylor, M.D., Huang, A. (2015). Embryonal Brain Tumors. In: Scheinemann, K., Bouffet, E. (eds) Pediatric Neuro-oncology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1541-5_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1541-5_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-1540-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-1541-5

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