
Around 1 in 5 people diagnosed with cancer in the UK take part in a clinical trial.
This trial looked at radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy for people with a type of brain tumour called an ependymoma. It was for children and young people from 3 to 21 years old.
The trial was open for people to join between 1999 and 2007. The team published long term results in 2022.
Ependymoma is a rare type of brain tumour. When this trial was done, doctors usually used surgery followed by radiotherapy to treat ependymomas.
In this trial, they wanted to find out if chemotherapy would be a useful treatment. They gave this after surgery and before radiotherapy.
Some people in this trial had a combination of chemotherapy called VEC. This is the drugs vincristine, etoposide and cyclophosphamide.
The main aim of this study was to find out if chemotherapy could help stop the cancer coming back and help people live longer.
The research team found that vincristine, etoposide and cyclophosphamide chemotherapy might be a useful treatment for ependymoma.
Trial design
This trial was for children and young people from 3 to 21 years old. They all had an ependymoma and were due to have surgery to remove it.
If the surgeons were able to remove all of the tumour, they had radiotherapy after their operation.
If the surgeons weren’t quite able to remove all of the tumour, they had chemotherapy after their operation. And then radiotherapy after that.
Results
A total of 74 children and young people had treatment as part of this trial. They all had surgery to begin with.
The surgeons were:
Most of those who didn’t have all of their tumour removed during surgery had chemotherapy. The research team looked at how well this worked in 29 people.
They hoped the cancer would either go away or get smaller in at least 45% of people. They found it did in 65% of people. The cancer had:
They looked at the number of people who didn’t have signs that their cancer had started to grow again. They found it was:
Side effects
Everyone who had chemotherapy had at least one side effect. Many were mild or didn’t last long. But some were more severe.
The most common side effects of chemotherapy were:
We have more information about the side effects of vincristine, etoposide and cyclophosphamide in our Cancer drugs section.
Genetic changes
The research team looked for changes in some genes and proteins. They wanted to see if there was a link between them and how well treatment worked.
They found 3 changes which seemed to affect how well people did.
Conclusion
The trial team concluded that VEC chemotherapy could be a useful treatment for people whose tumour cannot be completely removed with surgery. And that it didn’t cause too many side effects.
They suggest more work is done to find more about out how well it works. And to look in more detail at who would benefit most from chemotherapy.
Where this information comes from
We have based this summary on information from the research team. 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 who did the research. 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.
Professor Richard Grundy
Dr Maura Massimino
Associazione Bianca Garavaglia
Brainstrust
Cancer Research UK Children's Cancer Trials Team
Children with Cancer UK
Fighting Ependymoma
The Joe Foote Research Foundation
The James Tudor Foundation
University of Birmingham
NIHR Clinical Research Network: Cancer
If you have questions about the trial please contact our cancer information nurses
Freephone 0808 800 4040
Around 1 in 5 people diagnosed with cancer in the UK take part in a clinical trial.