The latest news:

• SAN DIEGO GOES “OVER THE EDGE” FOR BRAIN CANCER RESEARCH         From our friends at ABC2 and the Tug McGraw foundation - an interesting fundraiser.
  



• Local scientist wants you to pick the cure for cancer         This is a friend of mine. Interesting project...
  



• Brain Cancer Survival Improved Following FDA Approval of Bevacizumab         This study looked at a large group of patients and concludes that the approval of Avastin for GBMs has imporved survival!
  



• Researchers start clinical trials on neutron beams to treat cancer         Boron neutron capture therapy is an old treatment consisting of giving the patient a boron containing drug which concentrates in the tumor, and then shooting neutron beams at it. The neutron beams do not hurt the cells that do not have boron - but in the cells that did take up boron, the neutrons split the boron releasing radioactive particles that kill the cell. This has been tried before but the problem was fiding a way to get the boron into all of the tumor cells.  Years ago we did not have that technology, but now we are much closer!  Worth trying again.  
  



• Lighting up brain tumors        This is one of my pet peeves about the USA FDA.  This treatment can help surgeons remove more of the tumor safely, and it is approved in Europe, used on thousands of patients safely. The FDA refuses to allow it's use here because they admit it is effective in allowing more of the tumor to be removed safely, but they question if that is a benefit.    They want a large randomized trial to be done comparing overall survival with patients who use this vs those who use a placebo.  I know that is one trial I would not be referring patients to. It is unethical and unnecessary.      I love the FDA - they understood the need to approve Avastin and the Novocure system even when they only showed a small benefit.  Now that they are approved and being used in combinations - they are showing better progress.   It is just in cases like this where FDA policy goes against common sense.  

   
  




• Analyst: Celldex aiming at accelerated approval with brain cancer drug         This is excellent news.  The combination of Celldex and Avastin seems perfect. Celldex is a vaccine against EGFRvIII - which is a marker found on the worst subtype of GBMs.  I have heard rumors (the trial is still ongoing) that even when Celldex patients have a recurrence, usually the recurrence is EGFRvIII negative which gives a much better prognosis and more of a chance for other treatments to work.    Avastin is an antibody against VEGF which is another growth factor.  It is possible that a tumor needs one of these 2 growth factors to grow. Blocking them both makes sense