Medulloblastoma drugs in development: Current leads, trials and drawbacks

Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most common malignant brain tumor in children. Current treatment for MB includes surgical resection, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Despite significant progress in its management, a portion of children relapse and tumor recurrence carries a poor prognosis. Based on their molecular and clinical characteristics, MB patients are clinically classified into four groups: Wnt, Hh, Group 3, and Group 4. With our increased understanding of relevant molecular pathways disrupted in MB, the development of targeted therapies for MB has also increased. Targeted drugs have shown unique privileges over traditional cytotoxic therapies in balancing efficacy and toxicity, with many of them approved and widely used clinically. The aim of this review is to present the recent progress on targeted chemotherapies for the treatment of all classes of MB. (C) 2021 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in children, and current treatments include surgical resection, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Patients are clinically classified into four groups based on their molecular and clinical characteristics, with targeted therapies showing advantages in balancing efficacy and toxicity. Numerous targeted drugs have been approved and widely used for clinical treatment of Medulloblastoma.