Latest News

• Promising Pathway Act Open House in Washington, DC This Tuesday!        

   We are planning to introduce version 2.0 of the Promising Pathway Act sometime next week. This open house is for patient advocates to hear about the act and to network with other groups. If you are in the area, we need people to show up to let them know we support this bill!  

  
  
• New GT Medical CEO Per Langoe on driving adoption of brain tumor therapy        

   There is a problem with slow adoption of new treatments.  I was taught to never be the first one to prescribe a new treatment, or the last one to prescribe a bad treatment.    That is ingrained in most doctors, but it doesn't apply when dealing with a deadly disease.  You need to take the risk / benefit ratio into account.   For something like gamma tiles, which have shown very impressive results with glioblastomas as well as metastatic tumors, we do not have the time to wait. Patients who need brain tumor surgery need to ask their doctors if it GammaTile is appropriate for thier case.  Check the list of doctors who are trained in the use of GammaTiles at https://gtmedtech.com/gammatile-centers/   If your doctor is not on the list and says they are not appropriate, get a quick second opinion from one who is on the list.  It is worth checking. 

  
  
• Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) combined with the drug repurposing approach CUSP9v3 induce metabolic reprogramming and synergistic anti-glioblastoma activity in vitro        

  I love this combination.  We usually recommend the CUSP0v3 protocol as an option to patients and usually suggest adding Optune to it.  This study confirms that the combination makes sense.  We do not have enough patients using this combination yet to tell how well it works but will be watching it! So if you are thinking of trying it, participate in our patient navigation program / registry so we can track it! Go to https://virtualtrials.org/xcelsior.cfm to get started!

  
  
• Theranostic Uses of the Heme Pathway in Neuro-Oncology: Protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) and Its Journey from Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) through Photodynamic Diagnosis (PDD) to Sonodynamic Therapy (SDT)        

   Excellent paper on sonodynamic therapy - the history, mechonism of action, current trials  and future prospects. The authors discuss all of the available devices - not just their own.    I beleive this therapy is going to be  a major breakthrough in the treatment of brain tumors. It is very elegant, non-invasive, early indications are that it is safe and well toerated, and it can be repeated as often as needed.

  
  
• Biodexa Reports Positive Phase 1 Trial Results For Diffuse Midline Glioma        

     This study showed that it is relatively safe and feasible to do repeated convection enhanced delivery of drugs to the brain - particularly the pons.  The drug they used, MTX110 is a nanoparticle formulation of Panobinostat.  This was a dose escalation study - so most patients did not get an effective dose - but it still showed an improvement in survival compared to what we know about the outcome of this disease.