U.S.

Doctors Isolate Tumor-Growing Genes

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 3, 2001 / 6:00 PM EDT / CBS

Following her surgery, 9-year-old Hanna Hunter is recovering from the most malignant form of children's brain cancer - a tumor called the medula blastoma.

Her mother can only hope Hanna’s tumor was fully removed before the cancer began to spread.

"Just to see her as sick as she was... I mean, she was just a healthy little girl up to that point," Laura Hunter said of her daughter.

A ray of hope is beginning to shine on the Hunter family, reports CBS News Correspondent Wyatt Andrews.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Washington report they've found a set of 85 genes that metastasize, or spread, Hanna's form of cancer.

They have found the genes that order these tumors to fan out.

"This represents a gene that is very highly turned on in an aggressive cancer," said Dietrich Stephan, lead author of the study. "For the first time, we have information about what causes these kids to die. Brain tumors and kids, for a long time, have been a real mystery."

The identification of these genes could one day have a major impact on brain cancer patients like Hanna. In the future, doctors will know which children need radiation therapy, and which children can be spared the ordeal.

Today, radiation therapy is standard, even though doctors have warned Hanna's mother it may permanently damage her ability to learn.

"It will allow us to say, 'This particular patient may not need whole brain and spine radiation,' which is really the key to this disease and all the bad side effects we see in treatment," said Dr. Tobey MacDonald.

The researchers also found another potential breakthrough. They believe that the class of so-called "smart drugs" already on the market to neutralize cancers like leukemia also may work to defeat these genes for brain cancer.

"Plain and simple - we think these drugs are going to work to save not only lives, but the quality of lives in kids," Stephan said.

Hannah still has as much to fear from her radiation therapy as from her cancer. Now, from the genetic code, may come a treatment that both heals and does no harm.