A study looking at how to investigate causes of brain tumours in children and young people (UK CYAB)

Cancer type:

Brain (and spinal cord) tumours

Children's cancers

Status:

Results

Phase:

Pilot

This pilot study was done to find out if it would be possible to do a larger study looking at the causes of brain tumours in children and young people.

Researchers are planning a large study to find out more about the causes of brain tumours. They want to look at a variety of possible factors. This study will run alongside similar international studies. Hopefully all these results will be combined to improve our understanding of brain tumours in children and young people.

To help prepare for the full study, the researchers did this pilot study first. The aims were to

Find out if it is possible to recruit large numbers of young people up to the age of 24
Test a questionnaire to see if it provides the right information
Develop ways to collect and store blood and cell samples
Help the researchers prepare documents for the larger study

Summary of results

The research team were able to recruit people onto this pilot study, and feel the larger study would be possible.

The research team running this study interviewed

49 out of 94 people (52%) with a brain tumour who were eligible to take part
78 out of 247 people (32%) who didn’t have a brain tumour and were eligible to take part (the control group)

They asked the people taking part about a number of different factors, including

Whether they were breastfed or not
Their birth weight
How many brothers or sisters they have
Whether they were born by caesarean section or not
Their mobile phone use
Whether they have regular contact with animals

They also asked some of the people taking part if they would be happy to give a blood or saliva sample. They found that everyone said they would give a saliva sample, and more than 8 out of 10 would be happy to give a blood sample.

The research team feel that feedback from those people who took part in this pilot study will help them make improvements to the design of the full study.

They concluded that it would be possible to plan and run a full study looking at the causes of brain tumours in children and young people.

We have based this summary on information from the team who ran the study. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists (peer reviewed Open a glossary item ) and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the study team. We have not analysed the data ourselves.