Proceedings of the first global meeting of the Posterior Fossa Society: state of the art in cerebellar mutism syndrome

Karin S Walsh; Barry Pizer; Sharyl Samargia-Grivette; Andrew L Lux; Jeremy D Schmahmann; Helen Hartley; Shivaram Avula; Posterior Fossa Society

doi:10.1007/s00381-024-06411-x

Proceedings of the first global meeting of the Posterior Fossa Society: state of the art in cerebellar mutism syndrome

Childs Nerv Syst. 2024 Apr 22. doi: 10.1007/s00381-024-06411-x. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Karin S Walsh^{1

2}, Barry Pizer³, Sharyl Samargia-Grivette⁴, Andrew L Lux⁵, Jeremy D Schmahmann⁶, Helen Hartley⁷, Shivaram Avula⁸; Posterior Fossa Society

Affiliations

¹ , 15254 Shady Grove Road, Rockville, MD, 20850, USA. kwalsh@childrensnational.org.
² The George Washington University School of Medicine and Children's National Hospital, Washington, DC, USA. kwalsh@childrensnational.org.
³ Oncology Department, Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, UK.
⁴ Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, USA.
⁵ Department of Paediatric Neurology, Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, Bristol, UK.
⁶ Ataxia Center, Cognitive Behavioral Neurology Unit, Laboratory for Neuroanatomy and Cerebellar Neurobiology, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA.
⁷ Department of Physiotherapy, Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, UK.
⁸ Department of Radiology, Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust, Liverpool, UK.

PMID: 38647662
DOI: 10.1007/s00381-024-06411-x

Abstract

Purpose: The Posterior Fossa Society, an international multidisciplinary group, hosted its first global meeting designed to share the current state of the evidence across the multidisciplinary elements of pediatric post-operative cerebellar mutism syndrome (pCMS). The agenda included keynote talks from world-leading speakers, compelling abstract presentations and engaging discussions led by members of the PFS special interest groups.

Methods: This paper is a synopsis of the first global meeting, a 3-day program held in Liverpool, England, UK, in September 2022.

Results: Topics included nosology, patient and family experience, cerebellar modulation of cognition, and cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome. In addition, updates from large-scale studies were shared as well as abstracts across neuroradiology, neurosurgery, diagnosis/scoring, ataxia, and rehabilitation.

Conclusions: Based on data-driven evidence and discussions, each special interest group created research priorities to target before the second global meeting, in the spring of 2024.

Keywords: Cerebellar; Cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome; Mutism; Posterior fossa; Tumor.