In recent years, we have seen an important progress in our comprehension of the molecular
basis of pediatric brain tumors (PBTs). However, they still represent the main cause of death by
disease in children. Due to the poor prognosis of some types of PBTs and the long-term adverse
effects associated with the traditional treatments, oncolytic viruses (OVs) have emerged as an
interesting therapeutic option since they displayed safety and high tolerability in pre-clinical and
clinical levels. In this review, we summarize the OVs evaluated in different types of PBTs, mostly in
pre-clinical studies, and we discuss the possible future direction of research in this field. In this sense,
one important aspect of OVs antitumoral effect is the stimulation of an immune response against the
tumor which is necessary for a complete response in preclinical immunocompetent models and in
the clinic. The role of the immune system in the response of OVs needs to be evaluated in PBTs and
represents an experimental challenge due to the limited immunocompetent models of these diseases
available for pre-clinical research