Lay Summary Most children with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) unfortunately die of their disease. Radiation therapy is the most effective treatment to date, but its effects are temporary and the tumor will eventually begin to grow again. Information from the International DIPG Registry (IDIPGR) regarding childen with DIPG who had radiation a second time was evaluated; this included average age, dose of radiation, use of steroids and the reasons a second course of radiation therapy was given. Our data demonstrates that, in this cohort of children with DIPG who received a second course of radiation, their survival was longer than what has been previously seen with radiation being given only once and this is consistent with another study (by Janssens)1. While significant, it is unclear if children who are able to receive a second course of radiation did better after their first course of radiation, aren’t as ill as others and can tolerate a second course, or otherwise were able to receive it while others did not. More work remains to be done to investigate this further.
Smiley et al. (2026) studied this question.