Spectroscopic MRI Guided Proton Therapy in Assessing Metabolic Change in Pediatric Patients With Brain Tumors

PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:

I. To obtain spectroscopic (s)MRI data from pediatric high grade glioma (HGG) patients before receiving standard of care radiation therapy (RT) and correlate baseline Cho/NAA ratios to recurrence patterns. (Cohort 1, observational) II. To assess the feasibility and safety of using sMRI to define proton therapy high dose (60Gy) target volumes for treatment delivery. (Cohort 2, intervention)

SECONDARY OBJECTIVES:

I. To evaluate how Cho/NAA defined radiation target volumes compare to standard of care radiation target volumes in size and resulting radiation delivery to adjacent normal tissue, by creating mock comparison RT plans for each patient.

II. To compare voxel-to-voxel changes in pre-treatment and post-treatment sMRI and evaluate as potential early predictor of tumor response/recurrence.

III. To evaluate sMRI as a tool in identifying pseudoprogression vs. true progression and correlate post-treatment sMRI metabolite ratios with histopathology if collected.

IV. To report patterns of failure in relationship to the RT field (local, marginal, or distant), progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) among all patients.

V. To report patient reported outcomes of health related quality of life (QOL) during and after proton therapy for pediatric HGG.

VI. To build a longitudinal tracking database including clinical data, imaging, and genomic molecular profiling for pediatric HGG treatment.

OUTLINE:

Patients undergo sMRI prior to radiation therapy, at 1, 4, and 7 months after RT, and at the time of suspected recurrence.

Inclusion criteria

• Pathologically diagnosed high-grade glioma (World Health Organization [WHO] grade 3-4). Patients with a radiographically diagnosed high-grade glioma may enroll prior to pathologic confirmation, but would be removed from study if pathology did not confirm the diagnosis of high-grade glioma.
• Primary tumor located within the supratentorial brain.
• Recommended to receive definitive radiation therapy.
• Able to receive MRI scans.
• Both males and females, and members of all races and ethnic groups are eligible for this trial.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients with pacemakers, non-titanium aneurysm clips, neurostimulators, cochlear implants, non-titanium metal in ocular structures, or other incompatible implants which makes MRI safety an issue are excluded.
• Patients that have any significant medical illnesses that in the investigator's opinion cannot be adequately tolerate MRI scan are excluded.
• Pathology demonstrated low-grade glioma or other benign or non-invasive brain tumor.