The 2013 abstract statistics are amazing. There were 5306 abstracts submitted from 75 countries. Of those, 2720 were accepted for presentation at the meeting and another 2034 were additionally accepted for ePublication. There were 172 abstracts submitted in the area of CNS Tumors and 81 in the field Pediatric Oncology.
One of those CNS abstracts happen to be on DIPGs!
Abstract: Diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPG) in adolescents can have different prsentation but similar outcomes compared to middle childhood
Insitutions: NIH and Lurie Children's Hopsital of Chicago
Authors: Kathy Warren, Elad Jacoby and Jason Fangusaro
In this study 46 children between the ages 10-20 years of age (median 13) were identified. There was a female to male ratio of 1:0.77.
Symptoms: headache (39%); double vision (27%); cranial nerve issues (27%); dizziness (25%)
Two were incidental
Onset of Symptoms to Diagnosis: 2 days to 5 years (only 9 had symtoms less than 2 weeks)
Radiation: 39/42 patients had radation; 36% did not improve or got worse during riadation: 63% remained on steroids at the end of radation
Time to Progression: (n-32 for data available) 8 months median with a range of 2 months- 2.5 years; 2 alive and 1 in active treatment at time of abstract submission
Conclusion: Adolescents are more like kids than adults with diffuse intrinsic pontine lesions with similarly abysmal survival stats.
Reference:
Diffuse intrinsic pontine gliomas (DIPG) in adolescents can have different prsentation but similar outcomes compared to middle childhood
http://abstracts2.asco.org/AbstView_132_118298.html
