Active clinical trials for "Central Nervous System Neoplasms"

RATIONALE: Studying samples of tumor tissue and blood in the laboratory may help doctors learn more about changes that occur in DNA and identify biomarkers related to cancer. It may also help doctors understand why low-grade gliomas develop in young patients and predict how they will respond to treatment. PURPOSE: This clinical trial is studying tumor tissue, blood samples, and family history in predicting tumor development and response to treatment in young patients with low-grade glioma.

The participants are being asked to get this PET scan because the participants have or may have cancer in the central nervous system (head, neck, or spine), and the investigator and the patient's physician thinks that this scan may provide useful information for the participant's treatment. Primary Objective To provide expanded access to L-[11C]methionine as a positron-emitting tracer in children and young adults for the positron emission tomography (PET) imaging of neoplasms of the central nervous system (CNS) and head and neck to guide therapeutic management of disease.

Biomarkers are small molecules that can be detected in the body fluids of patients; they often correlate with the presence of a cancer. MicroRNAs and proteins are small molecules which have recently been discovered in cells. They are known to be responsible for the normal development of cells and when they are disrupted can contribute to the development of cancer. Many previous studies have been done evaluating the expression of microRNAs and proteins in normal tissues as well as a wide variety of cancers. Recently, microRNAs and proteins from tumor cells have been detected circulating in the blood of patients with cancer. This presents a novel opportunity to use microRNAs and proteins in the blood as an early predictor of cancer as well as a marker of response to therapy. Previous work in our labs have identified miRNAs and proteins in the blood and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of pediatric patients with brain tumors. To determine a longitudinal evaluation of the presence of microRNAs and proteins in the blood, cerebrospinal fluid and urine of patients with central nervous system tumors from diagnosis through the course of their treatment. Though the duration of active treatment varies significantly based upon the diagnosis, patients will be followed for up to 24 months after enrollment onto the study).

Patients with recurrent glioblastoma who are planned to receive a second course of radiation are to be included into this monocentric cohort trial. Due to multiple pre-treatments simultaneous combined positron emission tomography (PET) with O-(2-[18F]fluoroethyl)-l-tyrosine (FET) as well as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used for treatment planning and follow-up imaging as it allows for a better distinction between treatment-related changes and viable tumor tissue.