Radiation therapy
This form of treatment uses high-energy X-rays to kill cancer. The doctor may use external radiation therapy, radiation that comes from a machine outside the body, to treat cerebral astrocytoma. Side effects of radiation include fatigue, drowsiness, nausea, vomiting and headache.

Researchers are studying the effectiveness of internal radiation therapy (putting radioactive materials into the brain through thin tubes) and hyperfractionated radiation therapy (giving radiation in small daily doses).

Radiation therapy can interfere with the normal growth and development of a child's brain. For this reason, the doctor may use chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, thus delaying or reducing the need for large doses of radiation.

Chemotherapy
The doctor may use chemotherapy drugs to kill the patient's cancer cells. These drugs may be taken orally or can be injected into a vein or muscle. The therapy is systemic because the drug travels in the bloodstream, killing cancer cells throughout the body. Examples of drugs used to treat cerebral astrocytomas include carboplatin and vincristine.

The severity of side effects depends on the type of drug given and the length of time the child must take it. Because chemotherapy attacks rapidly dividing cells, including those in normal tissues such as the hair, lining of the mouth and intestines and bone marrow, patients may experience hair loss, mouth sores, nausea and vomiting. In addition, most chemotherapy drugs are myelosuppressive - they lower the body's production of blood cells and platelets. This results in lowered resistance to infections due to low white blood cell counts or bruising and bleeding more easily due to lowered platelet counts. Low red blood cell counts (anemia) may cause fatigue. These conditions go away after chemotherapy is completed.

Bone marrow transplantation
This form of treatment may be used for patients whose disease recurs at a high-grade level. The doctor first gives high doses of chemotherapy, possibly along with radiation, to destroy all of the patient's bone marrow. The doctor then takes healthy marrow from a donor whose tissue matches the patient's as closely as possible. The donor can be someone not related to the patient; however, the best matches usually come from a brother or sister, preferably an identical twin.