Abstract
It has been widely recognised for many years that postoperative radiotherapy is essential for the eradication of medulloblastoma. Residual tumor leading to recurrence and to early death is inevitable following surgery alone. To achieve the maximum number of cures, radiotherapy must be meticulously planned and carried out, ensuring coverage of the entire cerebro-spinal contents with the maximum dose in the posterior fossa where tumor recurrence is most frequently seen [9]. It has also become clear that the only real chance of cure depends upon the first treatment: experience has shown that once recurrence occurs, any further treatment is essentially palliative and that a fatal outcome is practically certain. In spite of these observations, the established principles of postoperative radiotherapy for medulloblastoma are not universally applied and very poor results are still being seen in some centres.
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Bloom, H.J.G. (1979). Adjuvant Therapy for Residual Disease in Children With Medulloblastoma. In: Bonadonna, G., Mathé, G., Salmon, S.E. (eds) Adjuvant Therapies and Markers of Post-Surgical Minimal Residual Disease II. Recent Results in Cancer Research, vol 68. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81332-0_62
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81332-0_62
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