Participants and Procedures
This follow-up cross-sectional study consisted of 187 patients treated with PRT at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Francis H. Burr Proton Center for a primary brain tumor. Patients were ≤ 20 years at initiation of PRT (baseline), had no prior diagnosis of brain or CNS tumor, and had follow-up assessment conducted by MGH that included measures of psychosocial and executive functioning at least one year after completion of PRT.
Patients were treated with PRT, surgery, and chemotherapy appropriate for the diagnosis and according to the current standard of care. Surgical resection, when performed, was prior to PRT. Chemotherapy as part of treatment was always completed before follow-up testing. All radiation was delivered with standard fraction sizes of 1.8 Gy (RBE) per fraction (1.5 Gy per fraction for germinomas) in accordance with the national standard set by Children’s Oncology Group protocols for target coverage. MGH and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Institutional Review Board approvals were obtained for this study.