Lead investigator: Professor Rob Dineen, University of Nottingham
Funded by CCLG and CCLG Special Named Fund Edie’s Butterfly Appeal
Award: £149,970
Funded April 2020
Brain tumours account for a quarter of cancer in children. Ependymoma is a type of brain tumour that occurs most commonly in young children. However, chances of survival are lower than for many other brain tumours in children. Ependymoma is difficult to treat and there have been few recent improvements. In half of children with ependymoma, the tumour will return after treatment, and only a quarter of these children will survive for five years or more. Professor Rob Dineen’s research is exploring whether a new approach to identifying ependymoma tumours can help support better, more tailored, and potentially less invasive treatment for children with this type of cancer.
The chances of survival for a child with ependymoma are in part determined by differences in the type of tumour (which are caused by differences in genes and chemicals). Currently, the type of tumour can only be identified following invasive surgery to remove it. However, if the tumour type could be identified before surgery, the doctors could start planning treatments sooner, discuss the risks in more detail with the family, and – in future – use the information to guide trials of new cancer treatments, and predict the behaviour of the tumour in terms of whether it is likely to come back again after treatment
Professor Dineen’s project will develop a new non-invasive approach to identify the types of tumour without the need to perform invasive surgery. They are building on previous research which has shown that brain scanning techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) could help to identify types of ependymoma. They have developed a new computational concept known as ’radiogenomics’ which combines data from MRI scans with information about genes and chemicals. A computer programme processes this information to predict tumour types without the need for surgery.
In this project, Professor Dineen’s team will use a much larger set of MRI scans from children with ependymoma to confirm that this approach works in identifying ependymoma types. They will test whether this novel approach can help to guide predictions about which tumours are likely to respond to treatment or to re-grow after treatment. It is hoped that this new research will help to support improvement in the overall survival of children within ependymoma brain tumours.