Brain Tumor Awareness Month 2019 Webinar Series! This is a good opportunity to meet the experts and ask questions!
We may extend this year's series a few weeks if there is interest as there are lots of topics to cover!
National Walk To End Brain Tumors We are trying to raise money for several very important projects. I have many brain tumor research grant applications sitting on my desk right now - we will use the proceeds from our walks to fund these projects.
Leptomeningeal metastases in glioma This article talks about leptomeningeal spread. (Which means the tumor spreads to the lining of the brain and spinal cord). The common wisdom used to be that once this happened, the outlook was terrible and it wasn't worth even trying to treat it. This article (and other experiences such as from MD Anderson (https://www.mdanderson.org/publications/cancerwise/new-hope-for-leptomeningeal-disease-care.h00-159144456.html) show that it IS worth trying to treat it, and the outlook is only about as bad as the usual recurrences that do not involve the meninges. Many clinical trials and even compassionate use programs exclude patients with leptomeningeal spread. They shouldn't.
'I Love What I Do' - Internationally Renowned Brain Surgeon Dr. Linda Liau This is one of my all time favorite brain tumor doctors and proud to say she is a friend. Also an advisor to the Musella Foundation. She just spent a lot of time helping us update our Guide for the Newly Diagnosed - which should come out next month!
However, they are incorrect when they say there is no useful way to target this. The drug Onc201 is a very selective antagonist to DRD2 and is now in clinical trials for brain tumors. Although it is too early to tell how well it works, I have seen a few remarkable responses to it already. This article talks about trying to repurpose older drugs that are NOT selective.
Disclaimer: The Musella Foundation was an early supporter of Onc201 and we are involved in funding the compassionate use program for this treatment.
Correlation of Tumor Treating Fields dosimetry to survival outcomes in newly diagnosed glioblastoma: A large-scale numerical simulation-based analysis of data from the Phase 3 EF-14 randomized trial. This is a very technical article but basically it boils down to showing that there is a dose-response curve. The higher the dose the better the patient does. The dose is determined by the arrangement of the arrays around the tumor, as well as the average compliance time - which is the % of time the machine is turned on!
The differences in survival are pretty significant. The doctor has to determine the positioning of the arrays (and articles like this will help optimize that), but the patients can work on the second part: compliance. I find that most patients do not understand the importance of high compliance. The doctors usually say to try for about 70% compliance, but the evidence says if you can get to 90% or better, there is a big improvement. Unlike drugs which work for days or weeks after you take them, Optune stops working the second you turn the machine off - and starts again when you turn it on.
