The latest news:

• Tocagen Presents Intravenous Toca 511 Clinical Data at the 84th AANS Annual Scientific Meeting        Very good results. An article at http://neuro-oncology.oxfordjournals.org/content/9/1/29.abstract says average 12 month survival for recurrent gbm is 14%. This trial is reporting 61%. This project was supported, in part, by the Musella Foundation (as well as the other organizations listed in the article!).  Thanks to those whose donations allowed us to help get this project going!
  



• Novocure Kicks Off Brain Tumor Awareness Month with New Activities to Support and Inspire Those Affected by Glioblastoma         They did a nice jobe with the website. Take a look at the stories there. I never heard of ThunderClap before but it also looks like it can be very useful to raise funds for research and awareness for brain tumors. This is a perfect way to try it out. Follow the instructions below.  You will have to give your permission for the Thunderclap program to post a one time message to your facebook page.  It is safe to allow that. They can't see your username or password.  You do that now and then at the specified time, Thunderclap posts a message supporting brain tumors to everyones' facebook (and other social media) pages. By everyone sending it at same time, a huge number of people will see it and it might trend on twitter.
  



• Phase II study of radiotherapy and temsirolimus versus radiochemotherapy with temozolomide in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma without MGMT promoter hypermethylation (EORTC 26082).        Unfortunately, this treatment did worse than the control group - which was the standard of care.
  



• 11th SURVIVING BRAIN TUMORS AWARENESS EVENT— MAY 23 & 24, 2016—AT CLEVELAND CLINIC         We are honored to be one of the beneficiaries  of this event.
  



• Innovative Hypofractionated Stereotactic Regimen Achieves Excellent Local Control with No Radiation Necrosis: Promising Results in the Management of Patients with Small Recurrent Inoperable GBM.         This sounds like an ideal treatment for small recurrent gbms. They had local control (of the treated tumor) in over 90% of the tumors, although most people eventually died of tumors growing outside of the treated areas.   None had radiation necrosis which happens frequently with single fraction sterotactic radiosurgery.  This may work well in combinations with other treatments to give them time to work.
  



• NeuroBlate therapy brings hope to brain cancer patients         Neuroblate is now available in a lot of centers across the USA. Go to mybrainsurgeryoptions.com/ for details on the procedure and where it is available! (Monteris - the maker of Neuroblate - is one of the sponsors of our organization)
  



• Entrectinib Achieves High Response Rate Across Solid Tumors         This is an experimental treatment of a new targeted drug which hits 3 targets: NTRK, ROS-1 and ALK.  Might be worth trying this trial (or trying to get it on compassionate use if you do not fit the trial) if your genomic report mentions you have 2 or 3 of these targets overexpressed. Go to https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=Entrectinib+&Search=Search for the current trials with this drug.
  



• Long Beach Woman, Wendy Santana, Recovers from Brain Tumor, Writes Book         Nice story - and I am honored that she chose the Musella Foundation as the beneficiary of the book sales! Thanks!
  

BrainTumor Co-Payment Assistance Program Status:

• CLOSED to new applicants