Radiation myelitis (RM) is a rare complication of radiation therapy (RT). The Pediatric Normal Tissue Effects in the Clinic spinal cord task force aimed to identify RT dose effects and assess risk factors for RM in children. Through systematic review, we analyzed RT dose, fraction size, latency between completion of RT and toxicity, chemotherapy use, age when irradiated, and sex.

We conducted literature searches of peer-reviewed manuscripts published from 1964 to June 2017 evaluating RM among children. Normality of variables was assessed with Kolmogorov-Smirnov or Shapiro-Wilk tests. Spearman's rank correlation coefficients were used to test correlations between RT dose/fraction size and latency between RT and development of toxicity.

Of 1329 identified and screened reports, 144 reports were fully reviewed and determined to have adequate data for analysis; 16 of these reports had a total of 33 cases of RM with a median age of 13 years (range, 0.2-18) at the time of RT. The most common primary tumor histologies were rhabdomyosarcoma (n = 9), medulloblastoma (n = 5), and Hodgkin lymphoma (n = 2); the most common chemotherapy agents given were vincristine (n = 15), intrathecal methotrexate (n = 12), and intrathecal cytarabine (n = 10). The median RT dose and fraction size were 40 Gy (range, 24-57.4 Gy) and 1.8 Gy (range, 1.3-2.6 Gy), respectively. RT dose resulting in RM in patients who also received chemotherapy was lower than in those not receiving chemotherapy (mean 39.6 vs 49.7 Gy; P = .04). There was no association of age with RT dose. The median latency period was 7 months (range, 1-29). Higher RT dose was correlated with longer latency periods (P = .03) to RM whereas sex, age, fraction size, and chemotherapy use were not. Two of 17 patients with adequate follow-up recovered from RM; unfortunately, it was fatal in 6 of 15 evaluable patients. Complication probability modeling was not possible because of the rarity of events.

This report demonstrates a relatively short latency from RT (with or without chemotherapy) to RM and a wide range of doses (including fraction sizes) associated with RM. No apparent association with age at the time of RT could be discerned. Chemotherapy appears to reduce spinal cord tolerance. Recovery from RM is rare, and it is often fatal.