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American Society of Clinical Oncology, Journal of Clinical Oncology, 9(32), p. 886-896, 2014

DOI: 10.1200/jco.2013.50.9539

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Cytogenetic Prognostication Within Medulloblastoma Subgroups

Journal article published in 2014 by Erwin G. van Meir, David Jh H. Shih, Paul A. Northcott ORCID, Marc Remke, Andrey Korshunov, Vijay Ramaswamy, Marcel Kool, Betty Luu, Xin Wang, Yuan Yao, Livia Garzia, John Peacock, Adrian M. Dubuc, A. Sorana Morrissy, Stephen C. Mack and other authors.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Purpose Medulloblastoma comprises four distinct molecular subgroups: WNT, SHH, Group 3, and Group 4. Current medulloblastoma protocols stratify patients based on clinical features: patient age, metastatic stage, extent of resection, and histologic variant. Stark prognostic and genetic differences among the four subgroups suggest that subgroup-specific molecular biomarkers could improve patient prognostication. Patients and Methods Molecular biomarkers were identified from a discovery set of 673 medulloblastomas from 43 cities around the world. Combined risk stratification models were designed based on clinical and cytogenetic biomarkers identified by multivariable Cox proportional hazards analyses. Identified biomarkers were tested using fluorescent in situ hybridization (FISH) on a nonoverlapping medulloblastoma tissue microarray (n = 453), with subsequent validation of the risk stratification models. Results Subgroup information improves the predictive accuracy of a multivariable survival model compared with clinical biomarkers alone. Most previously published cytogenetic biomarkers are only prognostic within a single medulloblastoma subgroup. Profiling six FISH biomarkers (GLI2, MYC, chromosome 11 [chr11], chr14, 17p, and 17q) on formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissues, we can reliably and reproducibly identify very low-risk and very high-risk patients within SHH, Group 3, and Group 4 medulloblastomas. Conclusion Combining subgroup and cytogenetic biomarkers with established clinical biomarkers substantially improves patient prognostication, even in the context of heterogeneous clinical therapies. The prognostic significance of most molecular biomarkers is restricted to a specific subgroup. We have identified a small panel of cytogenetic biomarkers that reliably identifies very high-risk and very low-risk groups of patients, making it an excellent tool for selecting patients for therapy intensification and therapy de-escalation in future clinical trials.