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 Brain and Spinal Cord Tumor Clinic

Brain and Spinal Cord Tumor Clinic

Our Brain and Spinal Cord Tumor Clinic team provides specialty care for every aspect of care based on their individual needs.

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Our expert pediatric neurosurgical team uses advanced technology for diagnosis and innovative techniques for the treatment of brain and spinal tumors. Innovations such as the non-invasive brain mapping technology called magnetoencephalography (MEG), helps us evaluate brain activity and mapping before brain tumor surgery. As a dedicated children’s hospital, all aspects of our care are focused on children. Our team knows how every step of care must be tailored to each individual patient – based on their unique phases of growth and development. Our Brain Tumor Program team reviews every single patient together to monitor progress and make decisions as a team – using the experience and expertise of each team member.

Advanced Technology for Diagnostic Imaging Services

With access to all of the advanced technology resources at Arkansas Children’s, our patients are able to schedule any diagnostic tests or services in the same building as our brain and spine tumor specialists. With magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), our specialists are able to accurately diagnose and then regularly monitor tumor activity.

Specialized Care for Neurofibromatosis

Our specialized Neurofibromatosis (NF) Clinic offers expertise for the diagnosis and treatment of patients of all ages with neurofibromatosis, including NF1, NF2, and schwannomatosis. Our team of pediatric specialists works together for personalized care plans, including short and long-term monitoring. By working with a team that is focused on neurofibromatosis specific aspects of care, including clinical trials, your child will benefit from our team’s unique experience and expertise.

Because neurofibromatosis is a genetic disorder, Arkansas Children’s also provides genetic counseling and support for parents as they better understand how neurofibromatosis can affect family decisions.

Arkansas Children’s offers numerous clinical trials for our patients with brain and spine tumors through several national and international affiliations. Our Experimental Therapeutics Program provides new and innovative treatments or therapies. If you have any questions or need more information about whether one of these clinical trials may be available for your child, please contact Catherine Redinger BSN, RN, CPHON at redingercatherinel@uams.edu or 501-364-4290.

We offer new techniques and clinical trials, unique to specific tumors we treat, for an aggressive path of care – providing the skill and experience necessary for the most complex cases. New therapies may be available through our Experimental Therapeutics Program, including:

  • Young Children (less than age 10) with Medulloblastoma or PNET at Diagnosis: Head Start 4 sponsored by the NEXT Consortium - to Clinical and Molecular Risk-Tailored Intensive and Compressed Induction Chemotherapy Followed by Consolidation with Either Single Cycle (low risk patients) OR Randomization (high risk patients) to Either Single-Cycle or to Three Tandem CYCLES OF Marrow-Ablaytive Chemotherapy with Autologous Hematopoietic Progenitor Cell Rescue
  • Ependymoma at Initial Diagnosis (Study ACNS0831) sponsored by the Children's Oncology Group (COG) - a Phase 3 Randomized Trial of Post-Radiation Chemotherapy in Patients with Newly Diagnosed Ependymoma Ages 1 to 21 years
  • Medulloblastoma with WNT pathway Subgroup at Initial Diagnosis (Study ACNS 1422) sponsored by the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) A Phase 2 Study of Reduced Therapy for Newly Diagnosed Average-Risk WNT-Driven Medulloblastoma Patients
  • Pediatric MATCH Study (Molecular Analysis for Therapy Choice, Study PEC1621) sponsored by the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) A Study of Molecularly-Guided Therapy for Recurrent or Refractory Malignant Brain Tumors
  • Children with Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) and a Newly Diagnosed Optic Pathway Tumor (Study Developing Evidence-Based Criteria for Initiating Treatment for Neurofibromatosis Type 1 Associated Optic Pathway Glioma) sponsored by Children’s Tumor Foundation (CTF) to Follow Patients with Newly Diagnosed Optic Pathway Tumors to Establish the Natural History and Evaluate MRI and Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) Techniques in the Evaluation of These Patients
  • Relapsed or Refractory Medulloblastoma (Study ONC-403-001) sponsored by Neuroblastoma and Medulloblastoma Translational Research Consortium (NMTRC) - a Phase 1 Study of TB-403 (a Humanized Monoclonal Antibody Against Placental Growth Factor (PlGF)) in Pediatric Subjects with Relapsed or Refractory Medulloblastoma
  • The pan-ERBB inhibitor Neratinib in Previously Treated Solid and Brain Tumors sponsored by Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Investigators' Consortium (POETIC) – a Phase I Study for recurrent or refractory solid brain tumors including:
    • All malignant brain tumors at recurrence or disease progression
  • MEK Inhibitor Cobimetnib in Previously Treated Solid Tumors (Study G029665) sponsored by Pediatric Oncology Experimental Therapeutics Investigators' Consortium (POETIC) – a Phase 2 Study for Low-Grade Gliomas

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