When he was four years old, Joseph Baggio began to change. His mother, Rose Baggio, said her active little son suddenly began to lose his balance and fall. After 10 days of falling and being unable to keep his balance, Joseph’s worried parents brought him to Cohen Children’s on July 18, 2021.
“The brain MRI gave us the frightening news,” said Rose. “Our son, who was always so happy and active, had a large brain tumor. They were going to have to operate.”
In fact, tests revealed the presence of a large tumor in the posterior fossa (cerebellum) that is largely responsible for balance. Dr. Steven Schneider, co-chief of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Cohen Children’s, removed the very large tumor in a delicate, six-hour operation.
“The diagnosis of Joseph’s tumor was a medulloblastoma, the most aggressive, grade 4 brain cancer among young children,” said Schneider. “In the United States, one-in-300 children are diagnosed with tumors in the brain or central nervous system. We understand that a cancer diagnosis in a young child affects not only the patient, but the entire family, the neighborhood and the community. They say it takes a village to raise a child, but in the case of pediatric cancer, it takes a whole city.”
Following surgery, the good news was that medulloblastoma has a relatively high rate of cure with the standard therapy of both chemotherapy and radiation given to the whole brain and spine. However, the use of the necessary dose to the whole brain in children as young as Joseph can cause severe cognitive disability. Soon after surgery, Joseph began to suffer from posterior fossa syndrome.
“His speech was severely affected as were his arms,” said Dr. Mark Atlas, director of the Childhood Brain and Spinal Cord Tumor Program at Cohen Children’s. “We were very happy to have been able to offer Joseph and his family the opportunity to enroll in the HeadStart IV study, which is a national study geared towards a radiation-free therapy for children with localized medulloblastomas like Joseph’s. We can see that Joseph is doing very nicely, and back to playing soccer and behaving like any other happy, healthy child.”
Now officially in remission, Joseph is back in school and enjoying his favorite activities. He now reports that he wants to be a neurosurgeon like his hero, Schneider, because he also wants to be “very smart and save children’s lives.” As he tried his white doctor’s coat on for size, Joseph said, “Maybe one day I can come back and work here.”
-Northwell Health
