Pivotal Grant for Pediatric Radiation-Induced Glioma Research

Years out from treatment for cancer, some children may get secondary treatment-induced high-grade glioma. Specifically, children who are treated with cranial radiotherapy can develop incurable secondary brain tumors called pediatric radiation-induced gliomas. As a neuro-oncologist, Adam Green, MD, witnessed the impact of these brain tumors and saw the need for research that could give children a second chance at life.

“It feels like we’re failing in our jobs as oncologists, because we don’t have anything curative to offer these families like we have for those with other cancers,” Dr. Green says about his research on pediatric high-grade gliomas. “I decided to devote my research career to that.”

Dr. Green began his glioma research in fellowship and continues today as an attending neuro-oncologist at Children’s Hospital Colorado. His work focuses on studying this heterogeneous grooup of tumors known as pediatric high-grade gliomas to identify weaknesses in different subtypes and find novel treatments that can progress successfully through lab models and into pediatric clinical trials.

In 2019, Dr. Green published the largest paper ever detailing his exploration of the clinical and molecular features of pediatric treatment-induced tumors, including pediatric radiation-induced gliomas. Today, Dr. Green is continuing this work through a five-year, $2.4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study the causes, origins, prevention and treatment of pediatric radiation-induced gliomas. With this research, Dr. Green hopes to facilitate clinical trials that change the standard of care for this disease.

“Our hope is that when we meet these patients in the near future, we can tell them we have these treatment options, and we have shown there’s a potential that they can be cured with this plan,” Dr. Green says. “We need to be able to offer them hope.”