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. 2024 Sep 13;24(1):1146.
doi: 10.1186/s12885-024-12882-7.

Central nervous system pediatric multi-disciplinary tumor board: a single center experience

Rosellina Russo  1 , Tommaso Verdolotti  2 , Alessandro Perna  2 , Luigi Ruscelli  2 , Rosa D'Abronzo  2 , Alberto Romano  2 , Giuseppe Ferrara  2 , Davide Parisi  2 , Amato Infante  2 , Silvia Chiesa  2 , Luca Massimi  3   4 , Gianpiero Tamburrini  3   4 , Antonio Ruggiero  5   4 , Marco Gessi  6   4 , Matia Martucci  2 , Simona Gaudino  2   4
Affiliations

Central nervous system pediatric multi-disciplinary tumor board: a single center experience

Rosellina Russo et al. BMC Cancer. .

Abstract

Background: The Multidisciplinary Tumor Board (MTB) is a collaborative platform involving specialists in oncology, surgery, radiology, pathology, and radiotherapy, and aims to optimize diagnostics and treatments. Despite MTB's widespread benefits, limited literature addresses its application in pediatric neuro-oncology. After a literature revision on pediatric neuro-oncology MTB, our study describes our institute's pediatric neuro-oncology MTB, focuses on evaluating its impact and the neuroradiologist's role in patient-centric approaches, considering recent genetic insights into pediatric brain tumors.

Materials and methods: Literature Review concerning pediatric neuro-oncology MTB from January 2002 to June 2024.

Clinical data: retrospective study of all patient files presented in the pediatric neuro-oncology MTB (pnMTB) between 2019 and 2022. Statistical analysis was mainly carried out by directly comparing the absolute or relative values of the respective parameters examined; qualitative variables compared mainly with the chi-square test, quantitative variables mainly with the t-test.

Results: Literature Review: 7 papers encompass a multidisciplinary approach for the pediatric CNS tumors.

Clinical data: A total of 236 discussions were analyzed representing 107 patients. Median age was 14,3 years (range: 6 months - 17 years). The requests for case evaluations primarily came from the pediatric oncologists (83%) and neurosurgeons (14.8%), and they were mainly addressed to the neuroradiologists (70.3%). Proposals during pnMTB mainly involved imaging follow-up (47.8%) and management with chemotherapy (34.7%). Changes in patient treatment (CPT) occurred in 115 cases, and pediatric neuroradiologist intervention contributed to 72.4% of these changes.

Conclusion: Thanks to their multidisciplinarity, high number of cases discussed, and usual respect for their proposals, the pnMTB has made it possible to improve the coordination among specialties involved in patient management, to apply the recent protocols, and to exchange knowledge among teams managing pediatric CNS tumors.

Keywords: MRI; Multidisciplinary tumor board; Neuro-oncology; Neuroradiology; Pediatric, brain tumors.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The chart shows the frequency of the tumors discussed in our pnMTB, with gliomas representing the majority. However, the percentage slightly changes if considered relative to the total of patients (see Table 1)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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