The updated guidelines  suggest more testing and get more into the genomic markers.  For Glioblastoma, the big change is that Optune (listed as "Tumor Treating Fields (TTF)") is now included in the preferred regimen for patients with a karnofsky score of 60 or more.  In the last version of the guidelines, it was just one of a few choices.  

This is the Promising Pathway Act that I have been talking about for the past few years! It will soon be reintroduced to Congress. When it is, we must collaborate to exert pressure on Congress to pass it. The exciting update is that we now have Senator Kirsten Gillibrand on board! She is a Democrat representing my home state of New York! Previously, when we attempted to get this bill passed, we struggled to find Democrats who would support it. With bipartisan support now in place, our chances have significantly improved!

 GammaTile is an implanted into the resection cavity during a brain tumor surgery. It releases radiation to the tumor bed. They are FDA approved for both newly diagnosed and recurrent brain tumors.  1,000 patients are a huge milestone for a new brain tumor treatment. It means it is getting wide acceptance in the field!

 This is from our friends at Roon.  They are building an educational  community for brain tumor patients. Looks pretty good. Worth taking a look!

We are thrilled to share the exciting news of our partnership with StacheStrong to support groundbreaking research on brain tumors! Together, we have contributed $80,000 each, resulting in a total funding of $160,000 for five exceptional brain tumor research projects. This collaboration highlights the importance of working together to achieve remarkable outcomes. In addition to StacheStrong, we are proud to collaborate with esteemed organizations such as Cancer Commons, The DIPG/DMG Collaborative, The DIPG/DMG Research Funding Alliance, The Children's Brain Tumor Network, and the DIPG All-In-Initiative. Collectively, these groups encompass more than 100 brain tumor nonprofits, demonstrating the collective effort towards addressing this critical cause.

 This is one of two 5k fundaising events we have this month for Brain Tumor Awareness Month!   This event, May 21,2023, and our event in Salt Lake City, Ut on 5/29/23 both will support brain tumor research with 100% of the funds raised (after the direct cost of the events!)    These events are always fun.  If you can participate in either event, register now!   If you can not participate, you can still support either event with a donation!  Go to  https://walktoendbraintumors.org/ for all of our events!

Last night's webinar was very informative. We posted the recording to our video library.

Tonigth we have Dr Mark Malkin talking about the Clinical Trials for Brain Tumors that are being done at the Cleveland Clinic!

We host these webinars in our Zoom room, which offers the best platform for interactive participation and asking questions. However, we also attempt to simulcast the sessions on Facebook, as our Zoom room has a capacity limit of 500 attendees, which we've exceeded on a few occasions.

Last night we did not get to most of the questions asked on Facebook.  If you would like to ask questions, join in our zoom room. It is really easy.  Starting about 15 minutes before each event, our virtualtrials.org/webinar  page will have a link to the room. Just click it and you are in!

 Starts tonight!

This year's Brain Tumor Awareness Month Webinar series promises to be engaging and informative for all attendees. We host these webinars in our Zoom room, which offers the best platform for interactive participation and asking questions. However, we also attempt to simulcast the sessions on Facebook, as our Zoom room has a capacity limit of 500 attendees, which we've exceeded on a few occasions.

This is an interesting development in medical research that warrants attention, as it explores the use of ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier. It is important to note that this is still very early work, and it remains to be seen if this approach will prove to be effective. The clinical trial is currently open for patients with recurrent glioblastoma at Northwestern University in Illinois, with Dr. Roger Stupp serving as the primary investigator. Dr. Stupp played a pivotal role in developing the standard treatments for glioblastoma, including the Stupp Protocol of radiation and temozolomide followed by temozolomide alone. He also later added Optune to the protocol. With such a track record of working on significant medical breakthroughs, I wish the team success and will continue to monitor their progress closely.

The recent findings on the addition of Lomustine to the standard treatment of Temozolomide and Optune for Glioblastoma patients are particularly intriguing. The study showed that when the MGMT status is methylated, the effect of Temozolomide combined with Lomustine and Optune is additive, resulting in a cumulative effect that is equal to the sum of the individual effects. However, for patients with unmethylated MGMT, the effect is found to be synergistic, which suggests that the combination of these drugs results in a cumulative effect that is greater than the sum of the individual effects. These findings have important implications for the development of more effective treatment strategies for Glioblastoma patients and should be explored further.

 The survival curves for this clinical trial are very good, and this was for people with inoperable tumors which makes it much more impressive.    The concept is they give a dye - 5-Ala - to the patient. The dye gets taken up by tumor cells much more than normal cells.   This dye is FDA approved as Gliolan for use during surgery so the surgeon can tell tumor from non tumor.  However, they found that when the dye is excited by light (or by ultrasound when used with Sonodynamic therapy), it kills the cells that take up the dye and leave the normal cells mostly alone.  They use fiber optics to deliver the light through a small bur hole in the skull.    We do not yet have results for sonodynamic therapy but they have to be compared to this to see which way is better. Sonodynamic therapy is non invasive, and has the advantage of being able to treat  large areas of the brain, wheras photodynamic therapy requires direct access to the area.

This is an exciting development in the fight against brain tumors. While previous attempts at using Car-T cells against one target have shown some success, they fell short of the desired outcome. However, the new plan to target four different targets simultaneously holds great promise. In other types of cancers, Car-T cell therapy has led to cures, not just modest improvements in survival as seen in most brain tumor trials. Brain tumors pose a unique challenge due to their heterogeneity; some cells may have that one target, while others might not. This means that targeting only one antigen is not enough, as the remaining cells without the antigen will continue to grow the tumor. By targeting four different antigens, the hope is that all tumor cells will have at least one target, leaving no way for the tumor to grow back. For more information on how Car-T cells work, check out the video in the link below. The Musella Foundation, in collaboration with other pediatric brain tumor organizations, provided a grant to Dr. Vitanza at Seattle Children's to support early work on this project through our "DIPG All-In-Initiative."

 Of course it is only in mice so we can't get too excited about this just yet but it is an interesting new way to deliver treatments to tumors.  The two components they used sound logical and if it isn't as effective in people, they can try other combinations using the same delivery system.