Editorial

In 2016 the Johannes Wesling hospital of Minden has become University hospital. The children's hospital of Minden now is part of the Ruhr-University of Bochum, and since October 2016, a number of 60 medical students per year will be educated in Minden. A new campus building has been erected within the last year and the brand new lecture hall was the venue of the “Experimental Neuro-Oncology” this year. As in the last years, the meeting was scheduled at the last weekend in April. Under the responsibility of Prof. Bernhard Erdlenbruch experts in the fields of neurosurgery, neuropathology, neurology, radiotherapy, pharmacology, biology and molecular biology have discussed actual topics in neuro-oncology with a main focus on pediatric brain tumors.

The diagnostics and the prognostic role of molecular alterations in brain tumors has become the major topic in experimental neuro-oncology during the last years. Studies focusing in molecular characterization of CNS-tumors play a central role in actual research. New tumor entities were identified in the recent past and the WHO classification of brain tumors has been expanded. It is not surprising that research in the field of molecular genetics played the central role during the meeting. Several promising agents have been developed in the last years, but there is a lack of clinical trials to clarify whether the outcome of children will be improved by using these drugs. Thus, in order to get profit from the new insights in tumor development and growth, clinical studies have to be performed with new drugs interacting in tumor driving pathways. Darren Hargrave from the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, London, gave the key note entitled “Early phase trials in pediatric neuro-oncology: lessons for future design”. Further topics during the meeting were investigations using histone deacetylase inhibition in brain tumor treatment, the role of hyperfractionated ionizing irradiation on neural progenitor cells, experiments in cell-cell interaction, the effects of tumor vaccination with dendritic cells in high grade glioma and the use of oncolytic viruses in brain tumor treatment. The next meeting was scheduled April 27/28^th 2018.

Supported by the Deutsche Kinderkrebsstiftung.

Bernhard Erdlenbruch,
University Hospital for Children and Adolescents,
Johannes Wesling Klinikum Minden,
Ruhr University Hospital Bochum