Funded by The Little Princess Trust and administered by CCLG
Lead investigator: Dr Matthew Murray, University of Birmingham
Award: £623,737.53
Awarded March 2023
Germinoma is a rare type of brain tumour that mostly affects children and young people. Doctors are able to successfully cure many patients using a combination of three chemotherapy medicines. However, there are a number of serious side effects like reduced fertility, more chance of cancer later in life and long hospital stays during treatment so that fluid levels and salt levels can be monitored. This means that finding a safer and less toxic treatment is a top research priority for patients, carers and professionals.
In this clinical trial, Dr Matthew Murray at the University of Birmingham wants to find out whether the combination treatment could be safely replaced with just one chemotherapy medicine, and whether this causes fewer side effects. To find out the answer, patients enrolled in the trial will have one just one type of chemotherapy medicine (either carboplatin or vinblastine) for 12 weeks. Experts will keep a close eye on all of the patients in the trial so that, if the single chemotherapy medicine isn’t working well enough, they can be switched to the combination treatment. Patients will then have radiotherapy, as standard.
Dr Murray will monitor how their cancer is responding to the single treatment and compare it to existing data on the combination treatment. For patients whose cancer has spread from the brain to other areas, who would not normally have chemotherapy in addition to the standard radiotherapy, the team will trial using the single chemotherapy medicine to shrink tumours. They hope that this could reduce the amount of radiotherapy needed and prevent tumours growing during the wait for radiotherapy. They will also be collecting a lot of data in the trial, like MRI images and blood samples, that can be used to improve cancer care.
If the team find that using just one medicine is effective, they will continue to test the treatment in a clinical trial with more patients, with the goal of making this the new standard treatment for germinoma. Dr Murray hopes that this treatment means that patients will have a better quality-of-life, with fewer side effects, and will spend less time in hospital.