Participants and Procedures
This follow-up cross-sectional study consisted of 187 patients treated
with PRT for a primary brain tumor. Patients received assessment during
PRT (baseline) as part of their routine clinical care at a scheduled
outpatient visit. Eligibility
criteria for this analysis included diagnosis of any type of brain
tumor, patients were ≤ 20 years at initiation of PRT, patients had no
prior diagnosis of brain or CNS tumor, no recurrence, and follow-up
assessment was conducted at least one year post-PRT. Follow-up
assessment consisted of standardized written measures assessing
psychosocial and executive functioning with age-based normative data
(Table 1).
Patients were treated with PRT, surgery, and chemotherapy appropriate
for the diagnosis and according to the current standard of care.
Surgical resection, when performed, was prior to PRT. Chemotherapy was
completed before follow-up testing. Radiation was delivered with
standard fraction sizes of 1.8 Gy (RBE) per fraction (1.5 Gy per
fraction for germinomas) in accordance with the national standard set by
Children’s Oncology Group protocols for target coverage. Institutional
Review Board approvals were obtained for this study.