The evolution of medulloblastoma therapy to personalized medicine.

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Soma Sengupta, Emory University; Daniel Pomeranz Krummel, Emory University; Scott Pomeroy, F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center
• Language: English
• Date: 2017
• Publisher: F1000Research
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2017 Sengupta S et al.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.10859.1
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: F1000Research
• ISSN: 2046-1402
• Volume: 6
• Start Page: 490
• End Page: 490
• Grant/Funding Information: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.; Soma Sengupta is supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke grant (K08 NS083626), and the Winship Cancer Institute Institutional Research grant (IRG-14-188-01) from the American Cancer Society.
• Keywords: Medulloblastoma; TP53; SHH; specific targeted therapeutics; WNT
• Research Categories: Health Sciences, Medicine and Surgery; Health Sciences, Radiology

Abstract

Recent advances in cancer genomics have revolutionized the characterization and classification of medulloblastomas. According to the current WHO guidelines, medulloblastomas are now classified into the following molecularly defined groups: Wnt signaling pathway (WNT)-activated, sonic hedgehog signaling pathway (SHH)-activated and tumor suppressor protein p53 (TP53)-mutant, SHH-activated and TP53-wildtype, and non-WNT/non-SHH (i.e. group 3 and group 4). Importantly, genomic, epigenomic, and proteomic advances have created a potential paradigm shift in therapeutic options. The challenge now is to (i) translate these observations into new therapeutic approaches and (ii) employ these observations in clinical practice, utilizing the classification following a molecular analysis for diagnosis and application of new subgroup-specific targeted therapeutics.