First-line bevacizumab contributes to survival improvement in glioblastoma patients complementary to temozolomide. This reports a pretty big improvement in overall survival when using Avastin with Temodar as first line therapy. There are other reports that there is no survival benefit. It is hard to prove one way or the other if Avastin (or any new treatment really) has a survival benefit. The trials that said there was no (or small) benefit to overall survival did show a benefit in progression free survival and they were larger and randomized - which is usually more trusted, but all of these studies had other problems such as most patients had other treatments that could confound the results. In the randomized trial, many patients in the control group crossed over to using Avastin after progression, or had more surgery or more radiation. Too many variables. The only way to really tell is to follow all patients in a registry so we have large numbers of patients and analyze the effects of each subsequent or concurrent therapy!
Crowdfunding cancer treatment to fill an unmet need I read stories like this all of the time where patients have to raise a lot of money to travel outside of their country to get treatments. It is a sign of failure in our systems - both the USA and UK. There is a bill in congress called the Conditional Approval Act which may fix this problem in the USA.
In the mean time - wouldn't it make a lot more sense for these families to pool their resources to bring the treatment to their country instead of spending a fortune to go outside their country? For what 4 or 5 of these families raise to get access to a treatment, they could bring the treatment home for maybe 50-100 kids. Our organization, the Musella Foundation did just that with one pediatric cancer drug - for patients in the USA... no reason the foreign charities can't do the same.
‘Fail first’ no more: Pennsylvania moves to expand coverage of treatments for advanced cancers I never understood the concept of how an insurance company could tell a patient "you can not use the treatment your doctor prescribed which will give you the best chance of beating your cancer - but instead you have to try a cheaper drug first and fail on it - then you can try the one that might help". What they do not understand is that the first try is your best try. When you have a recurrence, the tumor is usually worse - you may be left with permanent neurological problems and even if cured at that point, your lifelong medical costs are going to be higher.
This is great news for Pennsylvania patients. We need this country wide!
Targeting and Therapeutic Monitoring of H3K27M-Mutant Glioma This provides a great overview of the treatments being used for diffuse midline glioma and DIPG. It also talks about the use of a liquid biopsy to monitor tumor response. Regular MRI scans are not conclusive when it comes to these tumors - parts of these tumors do not enhance and the edges are diffuse so it is hard to quantify how much tumor is there and if it is getting better or worse. A liquid biopsy might help!
Data Favor Max Resection for All Glioblastomas It is obvious, but nice to see proof that people who have a complete resection of the tumor do better than those that do not. It makes a big difference.
