Brain Tumor Progress Review Group

This article was written for The Childhood Brain Tumor Foundation,Germantown, MD 20876

Brain Tumor Progress Review Group
Jeanne Young, Childhood Brain Tumor Foundation
Reviewed by Dr. Roger J. Packer, MD

In the hopes of hastening medical and scientific progress in the fight against brain tumors, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Institutes of Neurologic Disorders and Strokes (NINDS) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recently established the Brain Tumor Progress Review Group (PRG) to review brain tumor specific issues and to outline and set priorities for a national agenda to hasten medical and scientific progress in the fight against brain tumors. The PRG is comprised of prominent members of the medical and scientific community, along with representatives from community advocacy groups whose primary interest is brain tumors.

At the first meeting of the PRG, which was held in Virginia July 5-7, 2000, Jeanne Young, from the Childhood Brain Tumor Foundation, along with other advocates from the North American Brain Tumor Coalition, was in attendance. Advocates were invited to join the PRG group to offer perspectives of brain tumor survivors and their family members. Each member of the PRG was assigned 3 sessions, from a total of 16 sessions being conducted, at which they offered insight and recommendations. The first session on Jeanne’s agenda was the session on Tumor Immunology led by Co-chairs Drs. Daryl Bigner and William Ransohoff. This session addressed Tumor Immunology, exploring antigen recognition, immunosuppression, cell trafficking, immunologic privilege, tumor vaccines, targeted treatments, immuno-gene therapy and animal models. Other breakout sessions at which Jeanne was in attendance included Neurobiology: Migration and Trafficking, led by Drs. James Goldman and Rolando DelMaestro, at which cell migration, migration into the central nervous system, effects of tumor cells on normal nervous system, and cellular substrates of imaging were discussed. The third session at which Jeanne was in attendance was the Pediatrics session, led by Drs. Roger J. Packer and Ian Pollack. This session explored the unique aspects of congenital/infantile tumors, including etiology/epidemiology, clues to development of other tumor types and genetic uniqueness, the developing nervous system and clues to the development of cancer and therapeutic issues, and the integration of neurobiologic/immunologic therapy in pediatric brain tumors. Issues of risk, orphan tumors and the issues of available agents were also discussed.

All advocates in attendance agree that this first meeting of the PRG was extremely enlightening and are eagerly looking forward to future developments that occur based on the recommendations and efforts made by the group as a whole. The PRG is an important step in the communication efforts in the fight against brain tumors by the medical, scientific and advocacy communities. We will keep you informed of any new insights by this group as they become available.

Please see http://www.ninds.nih.gov for additional information regarding the reports. Click on ‘About NINDS.’