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This event is part of our National Walk To End Brain Tumors. Volunteers from around the country host 5k events for us to raise money for brain tumor research. See WalkToEndBrainTumors.org for details and for the remaining events for this year. Other brain tumor foundations are also invited to participate. All of our volunteers do a great job and are appreciated. All of these events start our small and grow each year. The volunteers at our MN event have outdone themselves. They had the largest year to year increase we ever had - almost triple the previous year! 100% of the money raised at these events (except the Long Branch, NJ event which also goes to educational activities) goes to brain tumor research. The expenses were paid by the sponsors, so ALL of the money raised goes to research quickly. Our medical advisory board is considering many grant applications and we will announce the winners in about a week. Thanks to all of the volunteers and we would welcome people to volunteer to host an event in your city next year!
This article is confusing. They first say adding Bevacizumab (Avastin) to the standard of care has no impact on quality of life, then they say "Adding bevacizumab to radiotherapy with temozolomide (RT/TMZ) resulted in statistically longer deterioration-free survival across all health-related quality of life items."
In my view, they are intentionally being misleading with the headline. In the fine print at the end they say "there is no impact on quality of life DURING the progression free period."
I take that to mean the until there is progression, quality of life in both groups was relatively good. Once quality of life deteriorates, there is progression. So of course there won't be much difference in the period before progression - how can you get better than good? They downplay the part about statistically significant longer deterioration free survival. To me that is very important and a good reason for using Avastin for newly diagnosed. By having the same quality of life with and without Avastin, that means adding Avastin does not have a negative impact on quality of life - no more serious side effects than the placebo. And you have a longer period of feeling good.
[Disclosure - the company that makes Avastin is a sponsor of our organization)
When Gliadel was first approved, there were rumors that it caused brain infections. There were reports that it happened much more frequently with inexperianced neurosurgeons, but not with the experienced ones. This article shows that there is no link between the wafers and infections.
The long term data with Gliadel looks good. It is surprising that it isn't used more often.
This is a surprising finding.. the standard dosing for Temodar does as well as the dose dense schedules with less chance of serious side effects.
There are 3 more events this month in our National Walk To End Brain Tumors. Tomorrow in Utah, and 2 events in NJ next week!
See walktoendbraintumors.org for details!
One more week before the conference. There are only a few seats left. Patients are welcome. (Sign up as a student - it is OK).
This is the announcement for an exciting conference the 2 days before the society of neurooncology conference. It is for medical people only.
This trial may be a good option for kids with high grade brain tumors.
I sent this a few weeks ago and it worked out nicely. There are still a few more spots left in the study - you can get $100 for your time on a phone meeting! They need GBM patients or caregivers.
Excellent news. This treatment is very elegant. They inject a virus into the tumor - in 1 of 3 different ways - this virus can only infect cancer cells (see tocagen.com for how that works). When it infects them, it inserts a gene that encodes for an enzyme which converts a nontoxic oral fungus medication into a powerful chemotherapy - only in the cancer cells theoretically leaving normal cells alone.
They let the virus spread for a month or so, then give the oral medication. This kills the cancer cells that have enough copies of the gene. The cells that were infected but did not get enough copies of the gene acts as a reservoir to start the cycle again. They wait another month and repeat the oral medications.
If that sounds scary, they did build in a safeguard. They designed the virus to be very sensitive to oral anti-viral drugs so that if something bad did happen (and it hasn't yet), they can give a drug and clear the virus from your system in about a day. Also the virus can't live in normal healthy cells.
The Musella Foundation has funded a small part of these studies.
By itself the increase in survival doesn't sound like a lot but this adds a new possible tool to the toolkit that can be used to put together a cocktail that might have a long lasting effect. Best part is it is well tolerated with no serious side effects.
This shows a major difference in outcome between GBM patients who had "radical" surgery vs. thos who did not. They used a criteria of 1.5cm in diameter of residual tumor as the cutoff from radical to non radical surgery. They did not go into detail on outcomes from patients with total resections but it looks like extent of surgery - even on a rough look like this - makes more of a difference than anything else. This goes to show that selecting the right neurosurgeon and medical center - with the most experiance and the best tools, is the most important decision you can make.
5-ALA is a dye that is used during surgery to allow the surgeon to better see where the tumor is. It is approved and used routinely in Europe for many years but not approved in the USA. This article looks at all of the literature and shows that using the dye resulted in a much higher % of patients getting a total resection, and reported over 6 months increase in survival by using this dye. That is one of the largest increases in survival of any treatment for GBMs, and it is a safe, oral dye with no known side effects (other than sensitivity to the sun for a few days). It is criminal that it is not in use here in the USA.
This is a good first step but way too little. The NCCN guidelines should have made it a standard treatment for both newly diagnosed as well as recurrent glioblastoma. The upgrade from Category 3 to Category 2B will help with insurance coverage issues, but again, they are too conservative and should have upgraded it to a Category 1, which should eliminate all insurance issues and allow access to everyone who needs Optune.. Hopefully when the results of the recent phase 3 trial for newly diagnosed GBM patients is published, they will revise the guidelines again and give it a Category 1 for both newly diagnosed as well as recurrent GBM.
This is only in the test tube, so it is too early to get excited about it, but I love the methodology of this research and it can be used to identify other approved drugs which can be repurposed to fight brain tumors! Thioridazine used to be used in the USA mental disorders but was stopped because it had a bad side effect of causing heart problems.
It's a great sign that they expanded the trial!
Proceeds from this event go to the Musella Foundation, to support brain tumor research!
Donepezil (Aricept) is a drug approved for Alzheimer's disease. This study shows that it might be beneficial for brain tumor patients who have had brain radiation. It may even help people who already have deficits.
This is an editorial about the preceeding article
