Germ Cell Brain Tumor Treatment

Germ cell brain tumor care at St. Jude

St. Jude provides the highest quality of care for patients with germ cell tumors:

• We bring together medical experts and specially trained staff to care for your child. We also work with brain surgeons (neurosurgeons) at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital.
• We have a special team that helps better understand the makeup of the tumor. This team includes doctors and scientists who study:
  • Cancer cells
  • How the cancer happened
  • Current medicines and treatments to kill cancer cells
  • What makes these cancer cells grow and what new medicines can stop them
  • New medicines and other therapies to improve how treatments work
• Our brain tumor clinical trials have led to better therapies in children. These improvements include lower-dose therapies, targeted therapy, and proton therapy. These treatments kill cancer cells while sparing healthy cells and may lessen the severity of side effects that affect brain function after treatment for some types of brain tumors.
• The St. Jude Proton Therapy Center is the first center in the world that treats only children with this therapy.
• Along with the treatment studies constantly being developed at St. Jude, the staff also treats patients on studies developed by the Children’s Oncology Group, the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium, and the Pacific Pediatric Neuro-Oncology Consortium. Many St. Jude staff members play key roles in developing these studies. They are large trials carried out at multiple centers across the United States. 
• St. Jude offers a dedicated team of specialists to meet the needs of children with brain tumors, including:
  • Surgeons, doctors, and nurses who treat this cancer
  • Doctors who specialize in radiation therapy and pathology (making a diagnosis by looking at tumor tissue under the microscope)
  • Experts in diagnostic imaging and nuclear medicine
  • Genetic counselors
  • Clinical dietitians
  • Child life specialists
  • Psychologists
  • Researchers and scientists

More reasons to choose St. Jude for care include:

• We are consistently ranked among the best childhood cancer centers in the nation by US News & World Report.
• At St. Jude, we have created an environment where children can be children and families can be together.
• We lead more clinical trials for childhood cancer than any other hospital in the U.S. 
• St. Jude is the only National Cancer Institute–designated Comprehensive Cancer Center just for children. A Comprehensive Cancer Center meets rigorous standards for research that develops new and better approaches to prevent, diagnose, and treat cancer.
• The nurse-to-patient ratio at St. Jude is about 1:3 in hematology and oncology and 1:1 in the Intensive Care Unit.
• Patients may be able to get expert, compassionate care and treatment closer to their homes through our St. Jude Affiliate clinics.

Get more information about the Brain Tumor Treatment program at St. Jude.