Brain Cancer Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Brain Cancer, including details on symptoms, benign and malignant tumors, gliomas, treatment.

Closing the survival gap: implementation of medulloblastoma protocols in a low-income country through a twinning program.

Qaddoumi I, Musharbash A, Elayyan M, Mansour A, Al-Hussaini M, Drake J, Swaidan M, Bartels U, Bouffet E

International Outreach Program, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN 38105-2794, USA. lbrahim.Qaddoumi@stjude.org

Successful twinning initiatives have been reported in childhood leukemia. Pediatric neuro-oncology requires a complex multidisciplinary approach and the feasibility of similar twinning programs is unknown. Twinning between King Hussein Cancer Center in Amman and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto started with e-mail communications, and subsequently included monthly videoconferences and exchanges between institutions. The outcome of 35 newly diagnosed medulloblastoma patients (22 high-risk and 13 average-risk) treated during this period is reported. The 3-year overall survival for average risk and high-risk patients was 100 and 81%, respectively. This experience suggests that twinning may facilitate the implementation of multidisciplinary neuro-oncology programs in low-income countries. Videoconferencing allows interactive exchanges with a significant learning impact.

Published 29 January 2008 in Int J Cancer, 122(6): 1203-6.
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