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This reinforces the idea that biopsy of brainstem tumors is not as dangerous as we used to think. It is becoming more common and as this study reveals, can have a major impact in outcome. Almost 10% of the time, it turned out to be a TB infection instead of brain tumor(this is India - I would assume a much lower rate here in the USA). On the other hand, it shows that studies of brainstem tumors done without a biopsy have to be interpreted carefully - as you are never quite sure that it was a tumor to begin with - and if it is a tumor, which grade
Unfortunately, this treatment - by itself - did not help much. The treatment sound interesting. Perhaps if combined with other treatments it would have a larger impact. Another take away from this study is the low bar - they were trying for 1 month progression free survival (for the group who failed Avastin) . I never heard of using that before. And only 20% of the pateints achieved 1 month progression free survival. Points to the need for more research.
This is a free conference for patients, doctors and caregivers. They offer a free 15 minute consultation with a brain tumor doctor. Some of my favorite brain tumor doctors are speaking. It will be worth going!
(The Musella Foundation is not involved in it - just passing along the announcement!)
From our friends at the Monmouth and Ocean County Brain Tumor Support Group
This is a small trial of the ketogenic diet with and without Avastin, and it didn't help at all, however, this is not the same low calorie ketogenic diet that has shown some promise.
This is a perfect example of how you can use statistics incorrectly to make anything look good. The inclusion group was defined as patients who had at least 3 homeopathic consults in 4 years. If you take any group of cancer patients and only count those that lived 4 years, of course they are going to show better results. This doesn't capture those for whom the treatment did not work.
I am proud of this new feature on the website and would like to thank Stephen Western for his help with the project. Let me know how you like it and if there is anything we can add to make it better!
This trial did not show much benefit for using Avastin and Irinotecan for newly diagnosed unresectable GBMs. There was no difference in overall survival, however, the patients in the control group were able to cross over when the progressed, and there was about a 2 month advantage in time to progression.
This is one of the more important articles of the year, and for those of you who love reading highly technical medical literature, well worth reading the entire article (I can not post the full text on virtualtrials.com because of copyright restrictions). This explains how IL13Ra2 works and why it is so important. It also reviews the trials that targeted this and why they failed with hope for future trials.
As I was reading about the problems of the prior trials, which involved not being able to deliver the drug to the right place using convection enhanced delivery, I thought to presentations from the Tocagen trial which appear to have perfected convection enhanced delivery. I wonder if they repeated the trials today with the delivery technology from the Tocagen trial, perhaps we would have seen much better results.
This is only 1 patient, and at the time of the report was only 6 months from the start of the treatment, but shows proof of concept that a personalized approach may work.
Good news on the Tocagen Trial. Safe, well tolerated and early results are better than historical controls.
This is one of my favorites.
Disclaimer: Tocagen is a small sponsor of our organization, and we are a small sponsor of their clinical trials!
This says that the flu vaccine is not as effective in brain tumor patients as it is in the general population. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't get the shot, just that it is more important than usual to make sure those around you get it!
From our friends at the IBTA. Sad to see Denis is retiring as Chair of the IBTA. Kathy Oliver will take his place. Good luck and congratulations to Kathy!
I am a fan of fractionated stereotactic radiosurgery for GBMs. My sister in law participated in an earlier trial using FSR and a different chemotherapy drug and did very well for about 8 years. She did better than most in that trial but perhaps temodar is a better drug to use along with FSR.
When I first heard about the drug Cilengitide, I thought it would be perfect to use with a treatment like Avastin. I hope to see human trials of this soon. My thoughts: as shown in this article, Avastin cuts off the blood supply to the tumor, and stops a new blood supply from forming, so the only way the tumor can survive is to invade surrounding areas looking for a new blood supply. It makes sense to combine it with a drug that stops that invasion.
This sounds very useful and interesting. Will keep an eye on it
Although these 2 abstracts do not involve brain tumors, they show another mechanism of action as to how the Novocure system can work. The press release doesn't mention it, but the Novocure system IS approved for recurrent glioblastoma multiforme.
Disclosure: The Novocure company is a sponsor of our organization.
This may be one of the most important articles of the year. It is only in mice, but 100% of the mice were long term survivors. I would love to see this tried in people.
