Funded through the generosity of donors

Chantel Cacciotti – London Health Sciences Centre- Children’s Hospital – London, ON

Project Title: “Pediatric Bithalamic Glioma: A comprehensive clinical, radiological, pathological and molecular characterization”

Description of Project:

Thalamic tumours account for 5% of brain tumours in children and most often include unilateral gliomas. Bithalamic gliomas represent an exceptionally rare subset of thalamic tumours poorly understood due to the limited number of reports in the literature. We propose to assemble a large cohort of pediatric patients diagnosed with bithalamic glioma to provide a comprehensive characterization of this rare entity. We will do so by taking advantage of our well set up research network the Canadian Pediatric Brain Tumours Consortium and existing international collaborations. This will be done through a retrospective study in patients aged 0 to 18 years at diagnosis between 1995 and 2020. This study will describe the clinical presentation, radiological characteristics, pathological subtype distribution, therapeutic management and outcome of bithalamic tumours in pediatric patients. It will also aim to establish the molecular landscape of these tumours.

What receiving this award means:

“We are extremely grateful to Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada for supporting our research. With this research we will assemble a large cohort of pediatric patients diagnosed with bithalamic glioma, irrespective of the histological grade to provide a comprehensive characterization of this rare entity. This will provide valuable information on the characterization, presentation, treatment responses, outcome and molecular classification of pediatric bithalamic gliomas.”