title: Recent developments and current concepts in medulloblastoma.
abstract: Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor of childhood. While prognosis has significantly improved in the last decades with multimodal therapy including surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, one third of patients still succumb to their disease. Further research is needed to find more efficient treatment strategies for prognostically unfavorable patient groups and to minimize long-term sequelae of tumor treatment. This review gives a summary of the current state of treatment concepts including an outlook on the near future. We describe recent advances in the understanding of molecular mechanisms, their potential impact on risk stratification in upcoming clinical trials, and perspectives for the clinical implementation of targeted therapies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, University Children's Hospital, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland. Electronic address: nicolas.gerber@kispi.uzh.ch.
authors.forename: N U
authors.initials: NU
authors.lastname: Gerber
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany. Electronic address: m.mynarek@uke.de.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mynarek
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany. Electronic address: k.von-hoff@uke.uni-hamburg.de.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: von Hoff
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany. Electronic address: c.friedrich@uke.de.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Friedrich
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany. Electronic address: a.resch@uke.de.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Resch
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, D-20246 Hamburg, Germany. Electronic address: s.rutkowski@uke.de.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rutkowski
mesh_terms: D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D002648:Child; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D014943:Global Health; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008527:Medulloblastoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000628:therapy; D011379:Prognosis
keywords: (MeSH): Medulloblastoma; Brain neoplasms; Cancer; Child; Molecular targeted therapy; Therapy