Pediatric Low Grade Glioma - MEKinhibitor TRIal vs Chemotherapy

Pediatric low-grade glioma (PLGG) is a heterogeneous group of WHO grade I and II brain tumors, associated with a 10-year overall survival of 90%. It is the most common form of primary central nervous system (CNS) tumor arising during childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, accounting for over 30% of CNS tumors in this age group. A large group of PLGG patients will benefit from a complete resection of their tumor. Nevertheless, PLGG can occur anywhere and can be in some locations associated with neurological symptoms, unresectable or radiological progressive tumors that need medical treatments rapidly to avoid long-term sequelae. The current problem during this first line therapy is to improve tumor response, overall survival rate, as well as progression free survival. In our study, we will focus on a specific group of PLGGs without any congenital NF1 mutation and with a wild-type BRAF gene in the tumor. In this subgroup, for instance, the PFS is not increasing anymore above 50% at 3 years independently from the chemotherapeutic scheme. The two current standard therapies are carboplatin plus vincristine during 81 weeks or a weekly IV administration of vinblastine during 70 weeks. The most recent Canadian approach with vinblastine seems to have the same PFS rate, but with a better daily tolerance and less toxicities than the carboplatin/vincristine combination. Therefore, it is becoming the new standard approach in those patients. Nevertheless, we need to improve more their outcome with less recurs and a better first-line tumor response. The recent molecular discoveries involving the Ras/mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway in those PLGG is opening a new era with specific targeted therapies that might be the key to improve their survivals and giving hope to less treatment lines and a better tumor response. Therefore, we designed a prospective open randomized phase II study, named PLGG-MEKTRIC, comparing the experimental arm (a daily MEK inhibitor, Trametinib,