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This is a clinical trial for recurrent Anaplastic Astrocytomas. Looks promising.
Disclosure: Orbus Therapeutics is a sponsor of our organization.
It doesn't sound like they are going to be open to investigations. They are currently treating 70 patients at a cost of $300,000 per patient. If the treatment worked, they would have published and patented it and make a fortune helping patients all over the world. If they are not sure it works, then they need to keep it secret so they can scam rich foreigners.
As a reminder, some drugs, like Avastin, can make a tumor disappear from a scan even though it is still there. So I am not that impressed with the scan results. However, the article does say there is some evidence of living longer, which would impress me. I hope they let the expert investigate.
One more time... only a few slots left for patients and caregivers. You get $75 for responding to the survey, and the Musella Foundation gets a donation!
Let me know if you do it!
This is a small study - so it can't be relied on completely. However, it shows that adding both Gliadel and Avastin to the standard Temodar for newly diagnosed GBM added 9 months to average survival and doubled progression free survival. Another tidbit - more than half of patients operated on in this hospital in Japan received Gliadel wafer.
Very interesting. If this is true, this may lead to big gains in immunotherapies. One of the problems was the lack of CD8+ Killer T Cells in the area of the tumor. Apparently, Gliadel wafer may attract these cells to the tumor bed. So we need to watch combinations of Gliadel with immunotherapies!
Very exciting!
This is interesting.. the FDA apparently approved a device without requiring any proof that it helps at all. My first instinct was to dismiss it as nonsense, but the press release says that Dr. Michael Prados is on the scientific advisory board - he is one of the best neuro-oncologists in the world, so we cannot dismiss this. I made the same mistake with Optune - I completely dismissed it at first glance, until I saw the research results and met patients who did well with it. This works in a completely different way than Optune.
This may be another option for patients whose tumors are in the corpus callosum.
This is for a new treatment for pediatric brain tumors that have a certain mutation. Almost all DIPG patients have it and some high grade glioma patients have it, especially those near the midline of the brain. Fascinating but highly technical article. Bottom line is that it led to a clinical trial for kids with this mutation.
These are my thoughts on the right to try law. The Senate passed it already and the House is considering it.
This is impressive. After a single injection, they had a complete response to a recurrent gbm, and 20% of the patients did much better than expected - although unfortunately they all died. This is a step forward - it has to be fined tuned: optimize the delivery and schedule of it and see which drugs can make it work better.
I have sent this before but now they only need a few more patients. They already had enough caregivers. If interested, they pay you $75 and give us a donation. (So let me know if you do the survey!)
Unfortunately, this report says there is no effect.
This trial shows why we need to test treatments in kids and not just assume that they will work the same as in adults. This trial compares the standard of radiation and temodar with and without Avastin, for newly diagnosed high grade glioma. In previously reported trials on adults, there was a pretty good increase in progression free survival with just about no increase in overall survival. In this study with children, they found that adding Avastin decreased both the progression free survival and overall survival, and there were more side effects in the Avastin group.
[Disclosure: Genetech is a sponsor of our organization]
The FDA is always conservative when it comes to the health of the public. Sometimes too conservative. They report that there is probably no link between cell phone use and cancer. I tend to agree with them.
This mutation is a bad sign if present. Most DIPG patients have it, and some GBM patients have it. Average survival in an adult Glioblastoma is usually less than half as long as those without it. Luckily, there are a few treatments in the pipeline that target this mutation. ONC201 is one of them - it is in trials for both adult and pediatric brain tumors with this mutation. Too early to tell how it will work but I do know of a few people who did well with it. If you have this mutation but do not fit any of the trials, there may be other ways of getting it. Contact us for help.
This is not in brain tumors yet, but this may be the most exciting news in years. This team has previously invented Rituximab, which is one of the most important cancer drugs ever invented, so they have the experience to do this correctly and quickly.. I am trying to see if we can get it tested on GBMs and/or DIPG.
JAMA is one of the most respected journals. The conclusion: Considering the net clinical benefit, our HRQoL (healthcare related quality of life) data support the addition of TTFields to standard therapy in patients with glioblastoma
This scholarship is for students in the Chicago area affected by a brain tumor.
I sent this out a few weeks ago.. They need just a few more patients.
This drug is in clinical trials now for recurrent anaplastic astrocytoma. This article reviews all of the data on over 500 patients who took the drug. Looks best for anaplastic astrocytoma, where there was a big improvement in survival!
Disclosure: The company that makes this drug is a sponsor of the Musella Foundation
