Background: This study explores the prognostic factors and outcomes of different treatment modalities in focal brain stem glioma (FBSG). Materials & methods: Pediatric FBSG patients diagnosed during 2010–2017 were retrospectively reviewed for clinical and therapeutic data. Results: A total of 71 cases were identified and the median age was 6.4 years. The 5-year overall- and progression-free survival were 74.5 and 70.6%, respectively. Radiotherapy was the main line of treatment (66.2%) and there were no survival differences between radiotherapy, chemotherapy and surveillance groups. Two independent poor prognostic factors were identified on multivariate analysis: age <8 years and cervicomedullary tumor site (p = 0.02 for both). Conclusion: Surveillance, radiotherapy and chemotherapy have comparable clinical outcomes in pediatric FBSG.

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Papers of special note have been highlighted as: • of interest

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Vol. 16, No. 30

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Received 7 May 2020

Accepted 30 June 2020

Published online 20 July 2020

Published in print October 2020

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Financial & competing interests disclosure

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

No writing assistance was utilized in the production of this manuscript.

Ethical conduct of research

The authors state that they have obtained appropriate institutional review board approval or have followed the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki for all human or animal experimental investigations. In addition, for investigations involving human subjects, informed consent has been obtained from the participants involved.

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