Your child’s treatment may be one of the following:

1. For patients without symptoms or progression, observation without treatment.
2. Surgery.
3. Radiation therapy.
4. Chemotherapy.
5. Clinical trials evaluating chemotherapy to shrink the tumor and delay radiation therapy.

Check for U.S. clinical trials from NCI's PDQ Cancer Clinical Trials Registry that are now accepting patients with untreated childhood visual pathway glioma ¹.

Glossary Terms

Treatment with drugs that kill cancer cells.

A type of research study that tests how well new medical approaches work in people. These studies test new methods of screening, prevention, diagnosis, or treatment of a disease. Also called a clinical study.

Closely monitoring a patient's condition but withholding treatment until symptoms appear or change. Also called watchful waiting.

In medicine, the course of a disease, such as cancer, as it becomes worse or spreads in the body.

The use of high-energy radiation from x-rays, gamma rays, neutrons, protons, and other sources to kill cancer cells and shrink tumors. Radiation may come from a machine outside the body (external-beam radiation therapy), or it may come from radioactive material placed in the body near cancer cells (internal radiation therapy). Systemic radiation therapy uses a radioactive substance, such as a radiolabeled monoclonal antibody, that travels in the blood to tissues throughout the body. Also called radiotherapy and irradiation.

A procedure to remove or repair a part of the body or to find out whether disease is present. An operation.

An indication that a person has a condition or disease. Some examples of symptoms are headache, fever, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, and pain.

An abnormal mass of tissue that results when cells divide more than they should or do not die when they should. Tumors may be benign (not cancerous), or malignant (cancerous). Also called neoplasm.