Projects we fund

Overview

Childhood brain cancer can be aggressive, and sadly children with these tumours have lower chances of survival compared to other types of cancer. What’s more, brain cancer and its treatment can cause long-term side effects which can have a huge impact throughout a child’s life. We need to understand the biology of brain tumours better, so that we can prevent the disease and develop new treatments. There are many advantages of breastfeeding for children, it helps to reduce risk of infections, asthma, and other childhood illness. There’s some evidence that it might also slightly reduce the risk of leukaemia in children. Some previous studies have shown that breastfeeding may also protect children against brain tumours. However, other studies have produced different results, and many of the studies are too small for scientists to be sure. In this project, Dr Michael Scheurer and his colleagues aim to confirm once and for all whether breastfeeding reduces the risk of brain tumours. He will do this by bringing together data from 10 separate childhood cancer studies from seven countries, as well as records of when each child was diagnosed with brain cancer. These studies have information about a range of potential risk factors, including whether participating children were breastfed or not. Combined, these studies include 3,334 children diagnosed with brain tumours and 12,171 healthy children, making this project the largest ever study of the causes of childhood brain cancer.

Potential impact

This project will provide the strongest evidence yet of whether or not breastfeeding reduces children’s risk of developing brain cancer. If Dr Scheurer shows that it does, this could strengthen recommendations for breastfeeding. What’s more, studying exactly why breastfeeding reduces brain cancer risk will improve our understanding of the disease. This could potentially lead to a better understanding of how brain cancers develop, and new treatments for this aggressive form of childhood cancer and to further highlight the benefits of breastfeeding for children.