Y. -W. Guo

1 Introduction An oversight in the history of leukemia treatment that has prevented greater success dates from the early days of chemotherapy when staging cancers became standard. Pioneered by David Karnofsky in the 1950s, staging for every cancer patient was designed to find and map the extent of disease, including the clinically obvious and disease not obvious on physical examination.

Abstract Medulloblastoma (MB) is the most prevalent brain cancer in children. Four subgroups of MB have been identified; of these, Group 3 is the most metastatic. Its genetics and biology remain less clear than the other groups, and it has a poor prognosis and few effective treatments available. Tumor hypoxia and the resulting metabolism are known to be important in the growth and survival of tumors but, to date, have been only minimally explored in MB.

Abstract Medulloblastoma is a cancerous brain tumor that affects mostly children. Among the four groups defined by molecular characteristics, Group 3, the least well characterized, is also the least favorable, with a survival rate of 50%. Current treatments, based on surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, are not adequate and the lack of understanding of the different molecular features of Group 3 tumor cells makes the development of effective therapies challenging.