SHARING EXPERTISE
Childhood cancer update 9 things to know about brain and spinal cord tumors BY AMBER SMITH
CANCERS OF THE BRAIN AND SPINAL CORD have surpassed leukemia as the largest cause of cancer death in children. It’s not because there are more brain and spinal cord tumors. Rather, progress has been made in treating cancers of the bone marrow and blood cells, so more children are surviving leukemia. Of all cancers, about 1 percent occurs in children, says Melanie Comito, MD, Upstate’s chief of pediatric hematology and oncology. e average age at diagnosis is 6 or 7 years. “Every child you save or cure of childhood cancer lives another 70-plus years,” she explains. “So when you look at years of life lost, more years of life are lost to childhood cancers, compared to adult cancers other than breast cancer.” Comito says each day in America, 46 children are diagnosed with cancer, and seven children die from cancer. Brain and spinal cord tumors account for about one out of four childhood cancers. Each year, more than 4,000 central nervous system tumors are diagnosed in children and teens. Some key things to know about brain and spinal cord tumors: l
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Symptoms vary greatly, based on the age of the child and the size and location of the tumor. Headaches that get progressively worse and morning vomiting episodes may be clues. While adults tend to have brain tumors in the upper part of the brain, many childhood tumors appear more toward the center of the brain or in the back near the cerebellum, the part of the brain that regulates muscular activity. Among the more than 50 types of childhood brain tumors, half are astrocytomas. ese tumors arise from star-shaped brain cells called astrocytes that make up the supportive tissue of the brain. Non-cancerous or benign tumors can be just as lifethreatening as malignant tumors because of where they exist in the brain. “ey’re oen in areas where you can’t just cut them out without causing damage,” Comito explains. She adds that tumors arising in the spinal cord are typically more amenable to surgery. Most tumors can be diagnosed through an imaging scan, but a biopsy is usually required to tell if a tumor is slowor fast-growing. continued on page 18
spring 2017 l upstate.edu/cancer
CANCER CARE
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