Known as pediatric radiation-induced high-grade gliomas (RIGs), this specific type of brain tumor is caused by cranial radiation therapy for other cancers, most often brain cancers. They account for nearly 4% of all childhood brain tumor deaths, but there have not been many studies on RIGs and how to treat them.

«It’s especially tragic because generally by this point they’re teenagers, or they’re young adults who are trying to move forward with their lives after dealing with cancer and still may be dealing with some of the aftereffects of the treatments,» says Green, a CU Cancer Center member who practices at Children’s Hospital Colorado. «Then suddenly they get this secondary tumor that’s incurable, and most of them die within a year. It’s really horrible.»

A rare killer

Known as pediatric radiation-induced high-grade gliomas (RIGs), this specific type of brain tumor is caused by cranial radiation therapy for other cancers, most often brain cancers. They account for nearly 4% of all childhood brain tumor deaths, but there have not been many studies on RIGs and how to treat them.

Working with patient samples collected over the past decade by the Morgan Adams Foundation Pediatric Brain Tumor Research Program at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Green and graduate student John DeSisto spent the past four years analyzing RIGs, using DNA and RNA sequencing to discover how they differ from «de novo» gliomas — or gliomas that develop not in response to cranial radiation. Green and his collaborators — including several CU Cancer Center members, as well as scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis and the Children’s Cancer Center in Hamburg, Germany — were searching for ways to prevent RIGs from forming, as well as methods to treat them once they arise. Their research was published September 20 in the journal Nature Communications.

«We found that the mutations that occur in these tumors are pretty different than the mutations that characterize de novo pediatric high grade gliomas. It seems to be a different biological process that is driving these to develop,» Green says.

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Materials provided by University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Original written by Greg Glasgow. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.