Unfortunately, another negative trial for pediatric brain tumors.  

   This is the early results of a phase 2 randomized clinical trial for recurrent glioblastoma, which shows a remarkable improvement compared to historical controls (they do not discuss how the placebo group in the trial dd).    6 month survival rate was 100% in the trial compared to historical 33%. Median overall survival is 46 weeks compared to historical control of 23 weeks. Presumably some of the patients are still alive and the survivals should increase but they are already at double, and this is with a treatment that usually has minimal side effects.  

This is a scary report.  They found that different tumors behave differently to alterations in levels of alpha-ketoglutarate.   Brainstem gliomas (in mice) benefitted from a treatment that lowers the level of alpha-ketoglutarate. However, low grade gliomas (in mice) did better when they increased the level of alpha-ketoglutarate.   It is great that they found an easy way to influence the speed of growth of tumors, but a lot more research needs to be done to fully understand how it impacts various tumors in people.   IF true, we need to be careful testing the ketogenic diet which increases the levels of alpha-ketoglutarate. It might help some tumors but also might hurt other types.  The methylation of the histones that alpha-ketoglutarate causes may be random, so the effect might not be consistent even in the same tumor types, or over time in the same patient. This definitely deserves more study.

 An exoscope is the next generation of operating microscope. It lets the surgeon better see what he is doing! 

 Please pass this along to your friends and family!  If you already are using it - note that you have to turn it back on in the Amazon app if you use the App.  If you use the website in a browser, you do not have to do anything.

 if you haven't sent the message to your representatives yet - please do it now. If for any reason you are opposed to the bill, contact me to discuss it.

This is from our friends at Pinpoint Patient Recruiting.  They will pay you $75 for your time, and give the Musella Foundation a donation!  Let me know if you do it!

 Worth watching for anyone not only dealing with metastatic tumors but any brain tumor as he explains stereotactic radiosurgery and LITT (Laser Interstitial Therapy) which can be used on other types of brain tumors as well!

 They report amazing results - about 35% 5 year survival for glioblastoma.  This is the type of treatment that highlights why our Promising Pathway Bill needs to be passed right now. If the bill was in effect, treatments like this would be readily available to you now.  Under the current regulations, this might not get approved for a few more years or possibly never.

 100% of donation made on the page virtualtrials.com/oncosynergy will go to fund this trial. We need to raise $60,000 to get the  first patient treated then work on raising more to help get the entire trial completed.  We can speed this up by funding it now. 

An Emerging Medical Market Play with Great Opportunity         This is a paid advertisement (to the Stockhouse newsletter - not to us!)  I usually never would reprint one of these in our brain tumor news blast as they are usually designed to just pump up stock prices, however it mentions an important new technology. This is a new platform that enables drugs to pass through the blood brain barrier.  Could be useful not only for brain cancer but other brain diseases like Alzheimer’s.  Will be keeping an eye on this.

 These projects will hopefully find ways to improve Optune! Very worthwhile!

 These types of reports bother me because we can't just try them right now.  It seems to make sense, and works in mice but it will be years before most people could try it.  It will unfortunately be too late for most people who currently have a glioblastoma.

However, if our "Promising Pathway Act" was passed, drugs like Val-083 would be approved and easily available, and we could try combining them with a few different topoisomerase drugs, record the outcomes in the registry and quickly learn the best way to use it. This is a much faster pathway to the cure.  We need your help getting it passed. Go to https://virtualtrials.com/activism.cfm for details and to easily send letters to your congresspeople.

 This is a great sign.. This experimental drug, Onc-201 is the first treatment ever that targets diffuse midline glioma and DIPG.  Early results look very good.  Our organization has given them many grants to try to speed up this process, but getting Rare Pediatric Disease Designation, along with Orphan Drug and Fast Track designation will hopefully allow the FDA to approve it sooner rather than later!

 I deal with this problem every day. Patients can not afford their medications.  We have been running a copay assistance program to help brain tumor patients get access to their medications. We have awarded grants to patients totaling over $7 million.  However we ran out of money and had to close the program to new patients.  We keep getting calls from desperate patients looking for help with these copayments and right now no programs are open to help them. Many are doing without treatments. Not acceptable.

  The president signed an executive order today that allows us to buy drugs from overseas.  The usual cost for the first prescription of Temodar is usually over $10,000.  In India, that same dosage could cost $100.  This drug went generic years ago but here in the USA it is still expensive.  I doubt if the prices will go down to the levels in India but even the UK charges about $3,000.  Would be great to level the playing field and have all countries that can afford it pay the same rate.  Of course I wouldn't want the poorer countries to have to do without it.

 We need everyone to do this. Ask your entire family to do it as well as your friends and post it to social media!

 This is exciting. Novocure is testing a high intensity version of Optune on recurrent gbm  There are also about 26 clinical trials going on for Optune looking at it's use in other diseases and for glioblastomas combined with radiation, checkpoint inhibitors and other drugs!

 This is a fascinating gene therapy that can be controlled by an oral drug - the gene therapy is injected into the tumor and it inserts a gene that when activated by the oral drug produces IL-12, which is an immune enhancer.  The problem is too much IL-12 causes severe problems so there is a need to be able to control it. They use this oral drug to control it and can turn off the gene therapy if needed simply by stopping the oral drug. 

They announced the first use of it in a DIPG patient.  They used it on over 175 other patients with other cancers, mostly glioblastoma, with relatively good results.   I wish them luck!

 This grant will be combined with grants from many other charities, and it will allow the onc201 program to reopen soon for a few months. After that we will try to fund it on a month to month basis as long as needed (until FDA approval).