ReACT: Overall Survival From a Randomized Phase II Study of Rindopepimut (CDX-110) Plus Bevacizumab in Relapsed Glioblastoma. This is one of the most important articles of the year. Rindopepimut is a simple off the shelf vaccine given as an injection under the skin (not into the brain). Apparently it has minimal side effects. In this study, the early results for using it on recurrent glioblastoma shows an improvement of more than doubling the 6 month progression free survival rate and there are twice as many patients still progression free in the vaccine arm than the control arm.
This is just one of a few clinical trials testing this vaccine. All have been showing good results. Let's hope this treatment gets FDA approval quickly so all eligible patients can benefit. (You need to be EGFRvIII positive to benefit from the vaccine).
The Efficacy of Ketogenic Diet and Associated Hypoglycemia as an Adjuvant Therapy for High-Grade Gliomas: A Review of the Literature. One of the common questions I hear about brain tumors is what diet should I be following. I never really was convinced that diet made much difference but we are seeing more evidence that it may. This article says that the Ketogenic diet in animal models increases survival. In humans there isn't enough information on survival yet but the diet was found to be well tolerated and let to a higher quality of life. It may be worth considering.
