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.”

Midpoint Update- Feb 2024

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 which are poorly understood due to the limited number of reports in the literature. The outcomes of patients diagnosed with bithalammic tumors remains unclear and there is no consensus on the optimal treatment for these patients. Molecular information for these tumors is confined to limited number of cases. Thus, with this study we aim to assemble a large cohort of pediatric patient diagnosed with bithalamic glioma to provide a compressive characterization of this rare entity. We received the generous support of The Brain Tumor Foundation of Canada in 2021 for our project which focuses on the comprehensive characterization of patients diagnosed with a bithalamic glioma. While the Covid pandemic put a significantly prolonged halt on research activities, we have been able to resume collaborations with several Canadian and International centers and have now identified 21 potential patients for whom we are in the process of gathering information pertaining to the study. We expect to complete accrual and data collection by the end of 2024 to and begin final analysis early 2025.

Chantel Cacciotti and Lucie Lafay-Cousin Update – January 2025

Thalamic tumors account for 5% of brain tumors in children and most often include unilateral gliomas. Bithalamic gliomas represent an exceptionally rare subset of thalamic tumors poorly understood due to the limited number of reports in the literature. The aim of the study is to provide on a large international cohort a comprehensive description of this entity to better delineate presentation and possible prognostic factor associated with survival.

2024 was finally a good year for the development of the project. We have completed the data collection with 44 patients, including clinical and therapeutic data. Almost all the tumor’s samples have been received by our collaborator at Sick Kids in Toronto (potential 3 additional one). The analysis of the molecular data is under way.

We are still waiting for a couple of centers to send us the imaging of their patients before we can provide the per case reimbursement for the cases submitted. Our goal is to submit the results of the study for the SIOP 2025 meeting (Deadline of abstract in April 2025).