A new paper by Dr. Souweidane’s team has been selected as the cover story in the September 2017 issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery Pediatrics. The paper, co-authored by chief resident Peter Morgenstern and MD/PhD student Iryna Ivasyk, is a case study of a young patient with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) with a cyst. The case study describes the successful infusion of the tumor-fighting drug despite the presence of the cyst, which allays concerns that the presence of a cyst might negatively affect drug infusion.
Dr. Souweidane’s clinical trial for DIPG uses convection-enhanced delivery (CED) to infuse the drug and maximize its distribution. A cystic cavity within in the tumor created the possibility that the drug could gather in the cavity and affect its distribution to the tumor. In this patient, however, the catheter delivering the infusion was carefully routed around the cyst, then the results were evaluated by an MRI scan. The scan confirmed that no drug had entered the cyst, and had permeated the tumor as planned. These results suggest that CED remains a viable treatment option for lesions with cysts.
The clinical trial continues to produce results that will influence treatment planning not only for DIPG, but other pediatric brain tumors as well. For example, recently published papers have shared new ways to measure the volume of diffuse tumors and methods for increasing their visibility on scans.
Read the paper's abstract
More about DIPG and the clinical trial
