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Looks like we need to find better treatments, although for recurrent anaplastic astrocytoma, it does look promising
Thanks to Susan! I use her for my insurance:)
Although this project was not done for brain tumor cells, it illustrates a very important concept. I hear of some of our members trying Disulfiram off label to treat their tumors. There was also a project a while back that tested a copper restriction as a treatment for brain tumors. So some members combined both. However this study points out that in lung cancer cells (we do not know if it is true for brain), copper is needed to make the Disulfiram work.
This points to the need to track people who try these combinations.. this is WHY we run the brain tumor virtual trial. Go to virtualtrials.com and click on Virtual trial for details and to join. Everyone who has a brain tumor should participate.
This is Fox news' take on the next article I am posting!
It sounds exciting, and the best part is they will be trying it for many types of cancers, so they should be able to get funding for it. It is really hard to raise money to test things like this for brain cancer alone.
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Let me know what you think of the changes and if you have any ideas for improvements!
I have mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand, I am all for patients being allowed to try experimental treatments, especially when all approved options have run out and they are not eligible for clinical trials. On the other hand, some protection of the patient is needed.
I would propose a few things before I allowed this to be made available:
1. Release all of the data on the clinical trials that have been run. They have not been published. Unofficial sources have said that there were over 100 trials of this treatment, and 99 of them showed negative results. 1 showed good results. Statistically, at the level of proof most commonly used, .05%, if you ran 100 trials, you would expect 5 of them to come out positive by chance alone. Having only 1 positive and 99 negative trials leads me to believe this is not the miracle drug it is touted to be.
2. I understand a traditional clinical trial can not be run on this group of patients, however, that does not mean that their experiances should go to waste. All patients who use a compassionate use treatment should be tracked. Our "Brain tumor virtual trial" is a perfect vehicle for this. An individual success is meaningless. About 10% of kids and a higher % of adults with brainstem gliomas do well for a long time on the standard treatments. If you take 3 patients, there is a good chance that 1 of them, and a small chance that 2 or 3 of them, would do well no matter what you did to them. However, if you had 50 patients tracked from before they start the treatment, the chances that 25 of them do well is pretty low if the treatment is not working. Not as convincing proof as a randomized blinded trial, but good enough for me and the people who have no other options.
Interesting new approach. Too early - only in mice now, but it looks like something to keep an eye on.
I love this. It would be a perfect tool to use with our brain tumor virtual trial!
This is a controversial area. Some centers find cytomegalovirus in all GBM cells, other centers can't find it at all. This is an attempt to standardize the procedure for looking for the virus. Hopefully, this will allow all labs to confirm that the virus is present in a very high number of gbm cells
Sounds like an interesting trial.
This is a fun fundraiser that anyone can participate in from their own home. The deadline is this Thursday - so do it now if you are interested!
They may have found a better treatment for ependymomas in kids. I usually say it is too early, since they didn't do the clinical trials yet, but when you have no other treatment, this may make sense. It is a drug approved for a different type of cancer so is easy to get.
We are one of the organizations mentioned!
We still do not know the best way to use Avastin. This articles seems to say that it doesn't matter when you start it - at the start, after first, second or third recurrence. It still gives about the same effect.
We have used up our funding and can no longer accept new applications.
It's nice to see these top researchers to get the recognition they deserve!
Great news! DC-Vax can now be sold in Germany. I do not know yet if Americans can go get it and bring it back. If anyone tries, please let me know how it goes.
