Defining the Future of Brain Tumor Treatment | Nathan's Story

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06/25/23

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Brain cancer is now the most common cause of death due to disease in kids.

Nathan Link was just 11 months old when Dr. Jonathan Finlay diagnosed him with brain cancer at Nationwide Children's Hospital.

Maggie Link, Nathan’s mother, says the nightmare started when Nathan refused to wake up one morning. A trip to the pediatrician’s office quickly led to a surprise visit to the emergency room. From there, Nathan was immediately admitted to Nationwide Children's Hospital.

“Nathan’s tumor was a quarter the size of his head. They said typically whenever a tumor grows that quickly, it’s benign,” Maggie explained. “But within minutes, Doctor Finlay told us it was absolutely cancer.”

Nathan spent 80% of the next six months as an inpatient at Nationwide Children's Hospital in the care of Dr. Finlay and the Neuro-Oncology team. He endured neuro-surgery to remove his brain tumor followed by intense chemotherapy. Dr. Finlay says Nathan followed a Head Start 4-like protocol to treat his cancer.

Head Start 4 is a tailored radiotherapy-avoiding approach to the treatment of newly diagnosed malignant central nervous system tumors of young children. For many children, the treatment of this type of cancer can have long-term negative impacts on their development and overall health. The goal of this particular initiative is to use a brief but intensive course of chemotherapy for these young children to both improve the cure rate and the quality of survival through minimizing long-term side effects.

Those long-term side effects for young children like Nathan are often associated with radiation therapy. The Head Start protocol, designed by Dr. Finlay and globally recognized, help children with malignant brain tumors avoid radiation therapy.

“What we have found,” says Dr. Finlay, “is that you have to hit brain cancer in children hard and early. It has become clear that we can cure some children with malignant brain tumors through giving them ultra-high doses of chemotherapy followed by previously harvested bone marrow. And then *NOT give them radiation therapy. What I tell families is that it is like getting a years worth of therapy in six days.”

Dr. Timothy Cripe is the Division Chief of Hematology, Oncology/BMT at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Dr. Cripe says Nationwide Children’s is dedicated to research and clinical trials, such as Head Start, that will reduce or alleviate certain types of cancer therapy that can be devastating to children.

Dr. Cripe calls radiation therapy the most devastating sledgehammer that you could administer to a child. “While it’s very important in older people and it works for their treatment protocol,” Dr. Cripe emphasized, “the side effects for a young, developing brain are very profound. So even if we cured the tumor, we may have devastated the patient. The question is can we substitute more intensive chemotherapy that doesn’t damage the brain but can still cure the tumor? This Head Start 4 protocol is one of many different ways we are testing to try and improve therapies for kids with brain cancer and cancer in general.”

The Head Start discoveries combined with a multidisciplinary team of pediatric cancer experts at Nationwide Children's Hospital are what helped Nathan beat his brain cancer with nearly no side effects. Today, Nathan is cancer-free and a happy, healthy little boy.

His mom says, “having a doctor like Dr. Finlay that can do this whole protocol without using any radiation and still have a cure rate was everything. It’s amazing. Thanks to Nationwide Children's Hospital, Nathan is going to live a long, happy life.”