Progress and expectations in the treatment of childhood brain tumors

The last 20 years have brought substantial improvement for a group of children whose disease had previously been considered untreatable. Unfortunately, we have yet to reach the point where >50% of children with high-grade brain tumors are cured. Nonetheless, an increasing understanding of the molecular mechanisms that underlie brain tumor drug resistance and the judicious use of aggressive chemotherapy provide reason for optimism for this most difficult to treat group of patients.