A diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) is an aggressive type of childhood cancerous tumor that forms in the brain stem. That’s the area at the base of your brain that connects the brain to the spine. The brain stem controls most of your basic functions: vision, hearing, talking, walking, eating, breathing, heart rate, and more.
Gliomas are tumors that grow from glial cells, which are found throughout the nervous system. They surround and support nerve cells, called neurons.
DIPG is difficult to treat, and it most often develops in children between the ages of 5 and 9. However, DIPG can affect anyone at any age. The condition is rare. About 300 children a year are diagnosed with DIPG in the United States.
Cancer patients with grim prognoses may resort to intra-arterial chemotherapy as compassionate use treatment, since it may reduce cancer symptoms, increase survival rates, and minimize drug side effects.
The treatment provided by IDOI for DIPG is an option even after patients have received traditional treatment in their country of origin.
A European Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOPE) and the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP) collaborative report, which gathers records of Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) and was published in July 2018, reveals that the average survival rate in more than 700 cases is 11 months.
As of early-2019, IDOI has treated over 70 patients with an average age of 9 years diagnosed with DIPG. After treatment, the median survival is 24 months (Kaplan-Meier). Just over 90 percent of the patients had over 1 year of survival and 50 percent more than 2 years of survival. The Institute continues to advance and improve.
IDOI stands out as an institution by virtue of its statistics, since it has 10 percent of the SIOPE and SIOP patient registry, and for obtaining more favorable patient outcomes on average.