Adding Chemotherapy in Medulloblastoma Linked With Improved Survival

A recent retrospective study found that adding chemotherapy to postoperative treatment of craniospinal radiation improves survival in adult medulloblastoma patients.

The study examined 751 patients from the National Cancer Data Base: 520 received both chemotherapy and radiation therapy following surgery, and 231 received only radiation therapy. Estimated overall survival at 5 years was 86.1% in patients who received chemotherapy compared with 71.6% in patients who received radiation alone. One of the study limitations was the lack of information on tumor mutation status.

In this video Benjamin Kann, MD, of the Yale Cancer Center and Smilow Cancer Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut, discusses the results.