Impairment of glioma stem cell survival and growth by a novel inhibitor for Survivin/Ran protein complex. This is fascinating on 2 levels... first - they describe a protien complex Survivin-Ran which may be responsible for making GBM cells resistent to Temodar, then they use a new method to create drugs using computer modeling - the start with the target then engineer a drug on a computer that would attach to the protien complex - and then actually make the drug. And in the test tube it actually works. This is way too early to help us - but something to keep an eye on.
Phase II trial of continuous low-dose temozolomide for patients with recurrent malignant glioma. This abstract shows that continuous low dose Temodar might be useful for recurrent GBMs and Anaplastic Astrocytomas, especially if the patient has not yet failed on Avastin.
An interesting side note is they found a smaller % of patients had mutation in EGFR than previously reported. Perhaps that means people with these mutations in general do not do well enough to take part in a trial after having a few recurrences. This has to be taken into consideration for the anti-EGFR trials..
Surgical extent impacts the value of the established prognosticators in glioblastoma patients: a prospective translational study in Asia. I know it sounds obvious that the more tumor you take out the better the patient will do, but it was never really proven before. This is the most convincing evidence yet, and shows the importance of the 5-ALA dye and the brain tumor paint that I have been talking about recently. Both of these allow the surgeon to see where the tumor is and result in a more complete resection. Both are not yet approved in the USA. 5-ALA is approved and used routinely in Europe and in trials in the USA.Tumor paint is in early trials in the USA.
