Pediatric Brain Cancer Trial Group to Be Phased Out

Well|Pediatric Brain Cancer Trial Group to Be Phased Out

A respected network of hospitals and cancer centers is halting enrollment in clinical trials for children with brain cancer after the federal government said it would no longer provide funding to the group.

The Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, an association of 16 academic centers and children’s hospitals dedicated to trials of novel treatments for pediatric brain cancer, directed its members last week to stop enrolling new patients because it had been informed that the consortium would not be eligible to apply for funding beyond March 2026, said Dr. Ira Dunkel, a pediatric oncologist who is the chair of the group.

Dr. Dunkel said he had heard about the decision from the program’s liaison at the National Cancer Institute on Aug. 19. He said he had not received written communication from the leadership at the institute — which provides the bulk of funding, about $4 million annually, to the consortium — about the decision. (Dr. Dunkel practices at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center but was not speaking on its behalf.)

The only explanation Dr. Dunkel has seen, he said, is a paragraph on the institute’s website, which was updated Aug. 21 and states a rationale of optimizing resources for “maximum impact.” The Trump administration has slashed funding for the National Institutes of Health, of which the National Cancer Institute is a part, though it’s not clear whether this decision was connected to those cuts.

The Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, which has conducted dozens of trials since it was established in 1999 by the National Cancer Institute, has six active trials; five are related to treatment. These are early phase trials evaluating the safety and efficacy of novel therapies for pediatric brain cancers — mostly “the very highest-risk types” of these cancers, said Dr. John Prensner, a pediatric neuro-oncologist at the University of Michigan, which is not a member of the consortium.

“These are the ones that have very poor outcomes, often in relapsed patients who haven’t responded to prior therapy, and patients for whom the chance of survival is very low,” he said.