Latest News

• Hydrogel and scalp/skin conductivities impact dose from tumor treating fields        

  The Musella Foundation helped fund this research! This recently published preclinical study shows how changing the conductivity of the hydrogel used with tumor treating fields (TTFields) can improve the therapy effectiveness by increasing coverage of gross tumor volume up to a certain point. This research will help optimize this aspect of TTFields while also minimizing skin toxicity. The article also gives some good insights on potentially improving scalp/skin conductivity. 

  
  
• Treatment strategy reprograms brain cancer cells, halting tumor growth        

  This is interesting new research from UCLA. They found that a plant-derived compound called forskolin can cross the blood-brain barrier and can be used synergistically with radiation. Recent research has shown that radiation may temporarily make glioma stem cells more flexible, so researchers theorized that adding forskolin at the right moment could exploit this flexibility by pushing the cells towards a less harmful (i.e. nondividing) neuron-like or microglia-like state. When they tested the dual combination in mice, the approach extended median survival and, in some cases, led to long-term tumor control.

  
  
• Neoadjuvant triplet immune checkpoint blockade in newly diagnosed glioblastoma        

  For those following the story of Professor Richard Scolyer, world-renowned pathologist and melanoma researcher who was diagnosed with GBM in 2023, this case report related to his treatment was just published. The article mentions that a clinical trial testing neoadjuvant combination checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) is planned for newly diagnosed GBM. For more info on the planned clinical trial, click here.