Brain Tumors in Children

As a parent, you’d travel far and wide to get the best possible care for your child. At Oklahoma Children’s Hospital Jimmy Everest Center, you gain access to leading-edge care close to home — including the most advanced diagnostic tools, treatments and clinical trials available in the state — and a team of experts who specialize in kid-friendly care for pediatric brain tumors.

Comprehensive Care for Pediatric Brain Tumors

When you choose the Jimmy Everest Center, you’ll feel the reassuring comfort of knowing your child is getting the best possible care. Your child’s comprehensive care starts from the moment of diagnosis and continues throughout treatment. In addition, your team of experts from multiple specialties meets regularly to discuss your child’s specific condition and the best path forward regarding their course of care.

As part of the support systems available to you, child life specialists can help your child cope with the physical, emotional and social challenges that may come with treatment for pediatric brain tumors. This comprehensive approach to care provides whole-child support throughout treatment and beyond.

Innovative Technology & Advanced Diagnostic Tools

You gain access to a team of doctors who use a combination of advanced diagnostic tools, including imaging, pathology, and molecular pathology, to create a targeted and personalized treatment approach for your child.

This comprehensive diagnostic approach includes molecular testing on every tumor to improve diagnostic accuracy and determine how genetic changes may influence targeted treatment options. This means your child gets highly individualized treatment for their specific brain tumor – a level of care you won’t find anywhere else in Oklahoma.

Advanced diagnostic imaging technology, including a highly advanced MRI machine designed especially for children, helps your child feel more relaxed during diagnostic imaging tests. In addition, the Jimmy Everest Center is the only pediatric brain tumor hospital to offer sedation options should your child need extra assistance to relax.

Advanced Imaging & Diagnostic Tests

Your child will benefit from imaging and diagnostic tests on the forefront of technology, such as:

• Modern diagnostic imaging – Provides detailed images of organs and tissue in the body to diagnose with accuracy, using state-of-the-art machines such as magnetic resonance imaging for children (MRI), computed tomography (CT) scan and high-grade operating microscopes to create detailed images of organs and tissue in the body.

• Pathology – Examines and analyzes tumor tissue after a biopsy to provide high-level information about the specific tumor and helps your child’s doctor create a customized treatment plan.

• Molecular pathology – Improves diagnostic accuracy by testing every tumor to identify genetic changes, target treatment for your child’s specific tumor, and determine if your child is eligible for a pediatric brain tumor clinical trial.

Individualized Treatments for Pediatric Brain Tumors

Your pediatric brain tumor care team assembles to discuss your child’s specific situation and treatment plan the optimal approach that may involve all or some combination of targeted chemotherapy, innovative radiation therapy or precise surgical procedures.

Your, your child and family become part of a multidisciplinary treatment team with the skill and expertise necessary to carefully examine each tumor to determine gene-expression profiles, which guides them toward the most effective treatment targeted toward your child’s specific tumor. This delivers targeted therapies unique to your child, potentially more effective with fewer side effects.

Targeted Treatments

Your child’s oncologist may recommend targeted treatments or chemotherapy as part of a comprehensive treatment plan. Depending on your child's specific situation, they may benefit from oral chemotherapy – one of the many advanced therapy options available to you at OU Health pharmacies near the Jimmy Everest Center. Whether your child needs in-patient or out-patient treatment, your OU Health pediatric chemotherapy nurses provide high-level compassionate care.

Innovative Radiation Therapy

OU Health is one of the few health facilities in the U.S. that offers proton beam therapy. This highly targeted radiation therapy that delivers precise doses of cancer-fighting protons to brain tumors and minimizes exposure to nearby healthy tissue. Proton therapy is especially beneficial for children and their developing brains. When you choose the Jimmy Everest Center, you’ll gain access to innovative treatments and highly trained radiation oncologists with additional training in pediatrics.

Precision Surgical Procedures

Your child’s surgical team includes world-class pediatric neuro-oncologists, pediatric neurosurgeons and pediatric radiation oncologists with years of experience in advanced surgical procedures and techniques, including open and endoscopic craniotomy, endonasal and transcranial endoscopic procedures, targeted biopsy, minimally invasive procedures and laser therapy. Whatever type of procedure your child needs, they’ll be in skilled hands with the experts at Jimmy Everest Center.

Research & Clinical Trials

At the Jimmy Everest Center, you can access to the latest research and innovative cancer clinical trials available at OU Health. Your child may qualify for developing new investigational treatments not yet widely available through our partnership with the Children’s Oncology Group (COG) — the largest pediatric clinical trials group — to bring you first access early-stage investigational drugs. Ask your doctor about the available clinical trials and determine if your child qualifies to participate.

Survivorship Support Throughout Life

Once your child completes treatment, you’ll have the full support of our pediatric brain tumor survivorship program to help you and your family navigate the transition back into daily life and provide specialized follow-up care for medical issues related to treatment for pediatric brain tumors, such as neurological conditions, and psychosocial support to help kids with emotional challenges.

Your Expert Pediatric Brain Tumor Team

At Jimmy Everest Center, your child's care team includes specialists from many healthcare fields who work together to create a personalized treatment plan designed to fit your child's individual needs. In addition to brain tumor oncology experts, your comprehensive care team also may include pediatric surgical oncologists, radiation oncologists, radiologists, anesthesiologists, neuropsychologists, pathologists, pediatric oncology nurses, social workers, child life specialists, oncology pharmacists, parent liaisons, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, financial navigators, dietitians, nutritionists and volunteers from the Oklahoma Children's Cancer Association.