Background: In 2019, the Open Pediatric Brain Tumor Atlas (OpenPBTA) was created as a global, collaborative open-science initiative to genomically characterize 1,074 pediatric brain tumors and 22 patient-derived cell lines. Here, we present an extension of the OpenPBTA called the Open Pediatric Cancer (OpenPedCan) Project, a harmonized open-source multiomic dataset from 6,112 pediatric cancer patients with 7,096 tumor events across more than 100 histologies. Combined with RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) from the Genotype-Tissue Expression and The Cancer Genome Atlas projects, OpenPedCan contains nearly 48,000 total biospecimens (24,002 tumor and 23,893 normal specimens).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJuvenile myelomonocytic leukaemia (JMML) is a rare haematological malignancy caused by mutations in the Ras signalling pathway. Next-generation sequencing (NGS) and DNA methylation profiling used for diagnostic and risk stratification purposes are now standard of care in Europe and the United States for patients with JMML. To better understand how implementing these types of technologies would impact the treatment of JMML patients in different settings, molecular profiling was performed on 81 patients treated for JMML in Egypt from 2009 to 2022.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Methylation class pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma (mcPXA) comprises tumors with the DNA methylation signature of classical PXA but with a wider histologic spectrum, including overlap with glioblastoma (GBM).
Methods: To clarify the histologic and molecular scope of mcPXA and characterize its clinical behavior, a cohort of 469 tumor samples from 458 patients matching to mcPXA by the DKFZ classifier (v12.6 score ≥0.
Background: Glioblastoma (GBM) exhibits significant intra-tumoral heterogeneity. However, the presence and extent of intra-tumoral heterogeneity of stem-like and differentiated cell components based on methylation profiles remain poorly understood. Furthermore, the utility of integrating methylation profiles with radiomic features (radiomethylomics) for predicting these cellular states has not been explored.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: Sarcomas pose a severe diagnostic challenge. A wide variety of these distinct entities need to be distinguished from each other and from less aggressive types of mesenchymal tumors, to ensure correct clinical management. A machine learning based classifier for sarcomas utilizing DNA methylation data from 1077 tumors recognizing 62 sarcoma types has already been developed and termed the sarcoma classifier, which we published in 2021.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSuccinate dehydrogenase (SDH), a critical enzyme in the citric acid cycle and respiratory electron transport chain, consists of 4 subunits: SDHA, SDHB, SDHC, and SDHD. Deficiency of a single subunit leads to the loss of SDH activity which is implicated in the development of a subset of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs): SDH-deficient GISTs. These GISTs arise almost exclusively in the stomach, have a female predilection, and primarily affect children and young adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neuropathol Exp Neurol
June 2025
DNA methylation-based classification is integral to contemporary neuro-oncological diagnostics, as highlighted by the current World Health Organization (WHO) classification of central nervous system (CNS) tumors. We introduce the Heidelberg CNS Tumor Methylation Classifier version 12.8 (v12.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neuropathol Exp Neurol
April 2025
Acta Neuropathol
April 2025
A putative molecular subtype of IDH-wildtype diffuse glioma with recurrent MAPK pathway alterations has recently been reported. By dimensionality reduction analysis of genome-wide methylation profiling, these tumors form a distinct methylation cluster of gliomas. Characterization of 47 tumors from 45 patients reveals that these gliomas are predominantly supratentorial in young adults, are highly infiltrative, and harbor mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway alterations with high rates of CDKN2A/2B deletion, PDGFRA amplification, MYCN amplification, NF1 variants, and BRAF alterations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Brain intraparenchymal schwannoma is a rare clinical entity, generally curable with adequate resection.
Methods And Results: We describe a case in a male patient first presenting at 19 months of age, the youngest reported age for this lesion. It also appears to be the first case connected to a germline TSC2 p.
J Pediatr Hematol Oncol
January 2025
Atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor (ATRT) is an aggressive, malignant embryonal tumor with dismal long-term survival despite aggressive multimodal therapy. While this tumor typically presents in infancy or early childhood, there are published case reports of adult-onset ATRT. Making prognostic conclusions or therapeutic decisions for this older patient population remains challenging due to the paucity of these reports.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAstrocytomas that harbor recurrent genomic alterations in MYB or MYBL1 are a group of Pediatric-type diffuse low-grade gliomas that were newly recognized in the 2021 WHO Classification of Tumors of the Central Nervous System. These tumors are described in the WHO classification as harboring fusions in MYB or MYBL1. In this report, we examine 14 consecutive cases in which a MYB or MYBL1 alteration was identified, each with diagnostic confirmation by genome-wide DNA methylation profiling (6 Angiocentric gliomas and 8 Diffuse astrocytomas, MYB- or MYBL1-altered), for their specific genomic alterations in these genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Neuropathol Exp Neurol
April 2025
Acta Neuropathol Commun
September 2024
Acta Neuropathol Commun
July 2024
J Neuropathol Exp Neurol
December 2024