Latest News

• A Month I Hope No Reader Must Face the Loss of A Child         Sept. is child cancer awareness month. This article by a friend of mine talks about the loss of her daughter, Vivienne, and ways you can help speed up the search for the cure. She mentions the Promising Pathway Act. I think getting that law passed is the #1 most important thing we can do to speed up the search for the cure. And it doesn't even cost you anything. Just go to https://virtualtrials.org/activism.cfm#/1/ and send a letter to your representatives. Only takes a few minutes. Then send it to all of your friends and family to do. We need a LOT of emails to make any difference.  If you have any political connections, talk to me about how we can use them!
  



• Lessons learned from contemporary glioblastoma randomized clinical trials through systematic review and network meta-analysis: part 2 newly diagnosed disease         This is an overview of the major phase 3 clinical trials for newly diagnosed Glioblastoma.    Unsurprisingly, TTF  (Tumor Treating Fields, also known as Optune) had the best results of any phase 3 trials for Glioblastoma.  The most upsetting thing is that other treatments that looked good are not only not available but have been discarded and are no longer being developed. One such treatment is ICT-107. This was a therapeutic vaccine that did amazing in some people but it failed to hit it's main endpoint on a randomized phase 2 study.  Some analysis of the trial showed that it really was a success but not as designed in the original protocol so it was deemed a failure.   As this article shows, it still did a lot better than the standard of care (this paper considers the old standard of care before Optune was added).   I am trying to get a new law passed - the Promising Pathway Act - which would let us get access to the group of treatments from this article that did better than the standards but are not available to you now.  
  



• The Importance of Shared Decision-Making for Patients with Glioblastoma         I am one of the authors of this paper on how the medical decision making process should be handled.
  



• Researchers Discover Treatment That May Be Viable For Human Brain Cancer        This article talks about a new treatment in dogs that have glioblastomas. A single injection helped most dogs and 1 dog had a complete remission.  Next they will be trying it in people. I wish them luck and will be keeping an eye on this!
  



• #CancelChildhoodCancer citizen petition campaign.        This is quick and easy.    We need you to sign a petition on Change.org to help speed up the search for pediatric cancers, including brain cancers! Our friends at the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation are spearheading this campaign! This literally took me 10 seconds to do.  
  



• Does proton therapy have a role in the treatment of brain tumors?        Proton radiation has a few theoretic  benefits over the standard photo or gamma radiation.  It can limit the radiation dose to the normal tissue better and should have less long term side effects.  If a tumor is up against the optic nerve, Proton radiation can hit the tumor without hurting the optic nerve.    The downside is most brain tumors are diffuse and you need to treat a border around the tumor anyway, and it is more expensive and harder to find a facility. More studies need to be done to prove an advantage.