
"I am glad that taking part in a trial might help others on their own cancer journey.”
This trial looked at erlotinib (also called Tarceva and OSI - 774) for children and young adults with brain tumours.
This trial is for children from 1 year and young people up to the age of 21. We use the term ‘children’, but we are referring to children and young adults.
Doctors often use surgery in combination with radiotherapy or chemotherapy, or both, to treat brain tumours.
When this trial started, erlotinib was a new drug that had mainly been tested in trials for adult cancers. This trial looked at erlotinib for two groups of children with brain tumours
The aims of this trial were to find out
The research team found that erlotinib was safe and were able to find the best dose to give.
This was a phase 1 trial and it recruited 51 children into 2 groups.
The first group was children who had a brain tumour that had continued to grow despite treatment. There were 30 children in this group and they all had erlotinib. They continued to take erlotinib every day unless they had severe side effects or there were signs that their cancer had continued to grow.
The second group was children who had recently been diagnosed with a type of brain tumour called a brain stem glioma. There were 21 children in this group, and they all had erlotinib and radiotherapy. They had radiotherapy once a day (Monday to Friday) for 6 weeks. They took erlotinib tablets every day unless they had severe side effects or their cancer started to grow.
The first few children having erlotinib in each group had the lowest dose. The next few had a higher dose, and so on until they found the best dose to use. This is called a dose escalation trial.
There were 4 dose levels. For both groups the research team decided that the 3rd dose level they tested was the best dose to use.
The most common side effects were
The research team concluded that they had found the best dose to give children and young people, and that erlotinib was safe to use for this group of patients. They suggest that it is looked at further in other trials, possibly in combination with different treatments.
We have based this summary on information from the team who ran the trial. The information they sent us has been reviewed by independent specialists () and published in a medical journal. The figures we quote above were provided by the trial team. We have not analysed the data ourselves.
Please note: In order to join a trial you will need to discuss it with your doctor, unless otherwise specified.
Dr Darren Hargrave
Children's Cancer and Leukaemia Group (CCLG)
National Institute for Health Research Cancer Research Network (NCRN)
If you have questions about the trial please contact our cancer information nurses
Freephone 0808 800 4040
"I am glad that taking part in a trial might help others on their own cancer journey.”