Caroline Donzé, Gabriel Revon-Rivière, Morgane Pondrom, Arnauld Verschuur, Pierre Leblond, Nicolas André from the Pediatric Oncology Department of of the Hopital pour enfants de la Timone APHM Marseille, the IHOPE Lyon, the Pediatric Oncology Department , CHU Nice, and the Metronomic Global Health Initiative, France have just published a short article in Pediatric Blood and Cancer entitled : Retrospective experience of children with relapsed brain tumors treated with oral combination of axitinib and metronomic etoposide.

In this article they’re report their preliminary experience of the combination of axitinib and metronomic etoposide given as as an “off-label” combination in 6 children and young adults with medulloblastoma (5 patients) or ATRT (1 patient). Interestingly, 3 patients with medulloblastoma experienced partial response; one patient with atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor (ATRT) displays an ongoing stable disease (12 months); two patients with medulloblastoma had progressive disease. Grade 3–4 toxicities were observed in two patients (thrombocytopenia, anemia, diarrhea, fatigue). The axitinib–etoposide combination shows signals of efficacy in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory brain tumors. These results were based on real-world observation and will need formal evaluation in a phase I/II trial.`

`The full text of the article is freely available here