Effects of valganciclovir as an add-on therapy in patients with cytomegalovirus-positive glioblastoma: A randomised, double-blind, hypothesis-generating study.
In the last news blast, I talked about using the anti-viral (anti CMV) Valcyte for GBMs. Today I came across a report on a trial for Valcyte with standard therapy for GBMS. This was a randomized trial - half get standard treatment and half get Valcyte for 6 months in addition to standard treatment.
The trial allowed patients to stay on Valcyte after the 6 months if they wanted to and they allowed the control group to switch to Valcyte - which complicates the interpretation.. as patients who were doing well probably stayed on the valcyte while those doing poorly probably stopped... so take this as an indication that it might help - not proof..
There was a small difference on scans but a big difference on overall survival: OS at 4 years was 27.3% in patients who used Valcyte for over 6 motnhs versus 5.9% in controls (P = 0.0466).
