| Summary: | Pediatric tumors appear during childhood and adolescence and are diagnosed from 0 to
19 years old.1 The WHO estimates that 400,000 cases are diagnosed every year
globally, which account for about 1% of all cancer diagnoses.
2 Pediatric tumors differ
substantially from tumors occurring in adults. While adult cancer occurs due to the
accumulation of genetic mutations and cell damage with age, pediatric tumors are
usually caused by a blockage in the maturation of immature developing cell types.
Therefore, the latter show much lower genetic aberrations.
3,4 The most frequently
diagnosed tumors during childhood are hematological malignancies (including leukemia
and lymphoma), followed by tumors of the central nervous system (CNS). Specifically,
leukemia (24.7%), tumors of the central nervous system (17.2%), non-Hodgking
lymphoma (7.5%), Hodgking lymphoma (6.5%), soft-tissue sarcoma (5.9%) and bone
tumors (4-8%) are the most common groups5 (Figure 1). In this work, we will focus on
brain tumors, and specifically on diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs).
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