Molecular Classification Of High Risk Infant Embryonal Brain Tumors Enrolled In The Acns0334 Trial: A Report From The Children'S Oncology Group

Abstract Young children with embryonal brain tumors including medulloblastoma (MB), supratentorial primitive neuro-ectodermal tumor, or pineoblastoma have historically been considered high-risk patients with poor outcomes despite the use of intensive radiation-sparing treatment. In the ACNS0334 phase III trial, 91 consented children <36 months old with the above diagnoses were randomized to intensive induction chemotherapy with or without methotrexate followed by consolidation with stem cell rescue. Here we present the results of a centralized integrated molecular analysis including global methylation profiling (65/91), and whole exome sequencing of tumor (46/91) and germline (35/91) DNA. Unsupervised clustering analyses of methylation profiles using multiple orthogonal methods against a reference dataset of 1200 pediatric brain tumors, revealed known and new molecular entities. For tumors diagnosed as MB on central pathology review, 7.3% (3/41) had a non-MB molecular diagnosis (2 embryonal tumor with multiple rosettes/ETMR, 1 group MYC pineoblastoma), with the remainder as MB Group SHH (11/41), Group3 (25/41), and Group4 (2/41). Among histologic non-MBs, 3/24 (12.5%) were molecular entities not intended for trial inclusion (1 each for ATRT, pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma, and high-grade glioma). ETMR, historically considered a rare entity, was molecularly identified in a significant proportion (14/65; 21.5%) of samples. Among MB-SHH, we detected deleterious PTCH1 mutations in 6/9 tumors but none among 5 germline samples tested; a germline SUFU frameshift mutation with tumor LOH was also observed in MB-SHH. Correlation of these and other molecular features to the parallel clinical analysis will yield important markers of risk stratification and predictors of treatment response.