Latest News

• There Is New Hope for Those Fighting the Same Cancer That Took John McCain & Ted Kennedy; Using Polio & Immunotherapy to Fight Brain Tumors         This is one of my favorite trials... PVSRIPO + Keytruda makes a lot of sense. The PVSRIPO is injected into the tumor and kills tumor cells.  The Keytruda ramps up the immune system so that it learns from these destroyed tumor cells and seeks out and kills tumor cells anywhere else in the brain (and maybe the entire body).  PVSRIPO by itself is a good treatment. For recurrent Glioblastoma, they reported a 3 year survival rate of 21% compared to historical controls of about 4%.  Hopefully adding Keytruda will increase that significantly.  Keytruda by itself did not really work out well with Glioblastoma, because it only revs up the immune system and there needs to be something there for the immune system to see.   The PVSRIPO kills the cells, making them into a better target for the immune system. Disclaimer: I am on the patient advisory board of the Brain Tumor Center at Duke.
  



• Toxoplasma gondii infection and the risk of adult gliomain two prospective studies        Interesting study.  They found that people who had a T. gondii infection, as determined by having antibodies against the parasite were more likely to develop a brain tumor. More research needs to be done to repeat this experiment in different groups of patients, and to  see if the parasite can really cause a tumor and / or influences the growth of the tumor.  There are other conflicting studies that did not show the association, but this one seems the best designed.
  



• Mitochondria in Overdrive Linked to Glioblastomas         This is an important study.. they looked at the mitochondria of the tumor cells, and found differences among some of the tumors that may open an Achilles heel. This subgroup might be treatable with existing approved drugs (such as Metformin).  The Musella Foundation recently awarded a grant to a different set of researchers to study this in depth.