This is an interesting idea.  Gleolan (5-ALA) is a dye given to a patient (orally) before a surgery. During the surgery, the surgeon shines a special light on the brain and ny tumor lights up with the dye.  This report then adds in the next step - photodynamic therapy.  Once the maximal amount of tumor is removed, they then hit the tumor bed with a laser which hurts the tumor cells which picked up the dye to mop up the remaining bad cells.    This could be simply added to most surgeries and used in addition to whatever else was going to be done.  

 This is one of my favorite trials for recurrent Glioblastoma.   Do not let the name polio virus scare you - this is a geneticaly modified version of the virus which does not cause polio. It has been used in people for about 8 years at other centers, this is just the first time at this center.

 This is a new public resource for cancer researchers.. These people tested 4,518 approved drugs to see which had anti cancer properties.  Their data is available free on their website.

 Good news for brain tumor patients in Israel - Optune is now covered by your national health insurance!

 This study shows a way to increase the chances of a gross total resection and at the same time getting less neurologic damage, by combining methods that were previously used by themselves! Great work!

 This is very early work and we need to see how it works in people but it has the potential to be a single treatment that can treat all types of cancer without hurting the normal cells at all. This is not directly about brain tumors  - I added it to the news blast because it might turn out to be a major breakthrough in the treatment of all cancer!  I will keep an eye on it and let you know how it works out!

 The program might not be open too long so if you think you can use it - apply now!

I love this kind of research - shows they are thinking through the problem and looking for new avenues of attack. This is way too early to say if it will help people, as they only tried it in mice.  Will keep an eye on it as they move into humans!

 They do not give many details except to say they doubled the survival compared to matched control group. That is a major advance!

 In this study, they found that shortening the radiation duration from the usual 6 weeks to 3 weeks and using Temodar during and after radiation was the best option for elderly patients with a Glioblastoma.  Unfortunately they did not look at adding Optune so from this article we can not tell where Optune would fit in. This is from India and I do not know if Optune is available in India.

 This report says it may now be possible to safely surgically remove high grade brainstem gliomas. This could almost double the expected average survival, which buys time for other treatments to work!  

 This is the reason why we like to see prospective trials.  In this retrospective study, they looked at people who used Temodar for 6 months or less versus people who received more than 6 months of Temodar.  The progression free survival was a little better but the overall survival was more than double (47 vs 20 months) in the long term group vs. the short term group. That would be very impressive except they did not give one group 6 months of Temodar and the other group more than 6. They just looked back to see how long patients used it.  It is possible that the patients who used it longer were the ones in good shape and who were responding to it and the ones who stopped at or before 6 months did so because they were having problems, in which case you would expect the group doing well to live longer than the group not doing well.

 Very well written book describes what happens from the first symptoms of a brain tumor through the surgery, radiation, chemo and all of the problems that arise. Worth the read.

 I love this type of research.  They looked at how Temozolomide effects tumor cells over time. We already knew most GBM cells will become resistent to Temozolomide eventually, but they identified a stage that the cells go through where they change to slow growing and change shape.  They identified a drug which interferes with the cell. Sounds like it is worth a try in clinical trials.

You can help. Follow the instructions in the article to ask your representatives to cosponsor and vote for this bill!

 This is the 3rd of the 4 payments of $250K that we pledged toward this $1 million project. I still need help raising the final $250K! If anyone is interested in helping, contact me! (Al Musella, DPM   musella@virtualtrials.com)

 Congratulations to one of my favorite brain tumor centers!

 This is a relatively small trial but shows a huge effect supporting the use of Optune for Glioblastoma.  

In the big EF-14 phase 3 trial for newly diagnosed glioblastoma, the trial was stopped at the first interim analysis because it was obvious the Optune arm was doing so much better than the control group that it was unethical to continue withholding Optune from newly diagnosed patients.    The people running this study did not do that - they allowed it to go on for 5 years - knowing that they were withholding the best treatment.  Doesn't sound fair to me.

 Very interesting question.  The clinical trial for Regorafenib in recurrent gbm showed a small benefit over Lomustine. However, the control group of Lomustine did terrible compared to the large trial testing Lomustine.  In the Regorafenib trial, the control group of Lomustine had 5.6 months of overall survival.  In the Lomustine trial, the same type of patients had a median overall survival of 8.6–9.8  months.  The Regorafenin group had 7.4 months.  So although Regorafenib did better than the randomized control group it did not do as well as the Lomustine in the Lomustine trial.  

 However, reports from real world use of the drug  came in that said almost all patients get severe side effects and they did not see the benefit seen in the trial.  So what do you do?

 Obviously more research needs to be done hopefully to find if there are biomarkers that would push you toward Lomustine, Regorafenib or the combination.  Perhaps the best way would be for having all patients be followed in a registry so we can see how it works in the real world and correlate with biomarkers.  As in our brain tumor virtual trial project or our new Excelsior registry https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03793088?term=musella&draw=2&rank=4

 This is one of the biggest problems we have - the high cost of treatments.  This analysis found a small benefit to adding bevacizumab (Avastin) to Temodar for people with inoperable Glioblastomas.  However, because of the high cost of the drug, it was determined that is not cost effective.  They set the acceptability bar at $26,500 to add 1 year of life. This treatment worked out to $171,638 for each year of life added. Not even close.  

 This is a societal problem. I do not blame the drug companies, as the cost to develop a drug under our system is so high that to recoup their investment, the prices have to be high.  Without high prices, there would not be new drugs getting approved.  We need to change the system so that any researcher with a good idea could afford to bring a drug through the system to get approval - which not only will drastically lower the cost of new drugs but gives us a wider range of treatments to use.