Sponsored by
A case report of a patient from the trial for recurrent GBMs, who has been on the device and doing well for 6 years. Of note is his initial MRI after sterting the device looked worse. This shows that the device takes time to work and some people have been stopping too soon.
This is from our friends at the Chris Elliott Fund
We had a good run! We gave out $715,000 in grants to 143 patients. Many have told us it was a life saver - as they could not get the treatments they needed without our help.
The program will reopen if / when we raise more money.
The NCCN guidelines are important because many insurance plans base their payment decisions upon these guidelines! The new version lists "alternating electric field therapy" (Novocure TTF100-A is the only FDA approved alternating electric field therapy device) as an option for both local or multiple/diffuse recurrences of GBMs.
This abstract shows a much smaller overall survival benefit to adding Temodar at the same time as radiation than the "Stupp" report... only a 1.25 month advantage to adding Temodar to radiation. It also points out that there are more side effects when adding Temodar to radiation. They conclude that we should question if the standard therapy is worth it.
My thoughts: this is a smaller study and not randomized as the Stupp studt was..so I tend to put more importance on the Stupp study - I wouldn't get rid of the standard therapy yet based on this study but it does show the need for more research.
Highlights of our work over the year! There is still time to make a tax deductible contribution for 2012!
Interesting new approach.. Too early - not in humans yet - but interesting idea!
Nice article about a man who is using the Novocure device.
(Disclosure: The company that makes Novocure is one of our sponsors)
Nice article about our good friend, Cheryl - who is a 12 year GBM survivor!
This is fascinating on 2 levels... first - they describe a protien complex Survivin-Ran which may be responsible for making GBM cells resistent to Temodar, then they use a new method to create drugs using computer modeling - the start with the target then engineer a drug on a computer that would attach to the protien complex - and then actually make the drug. And in the test tube it actually works. This is way too early to help us - but something to keep an eye on.
This article may show a link between brain tumors in Racoons and a virus. There was a lot of talk about human GBMs being linked to a different virus at the last big brain tumor meeting. See http://virtualtrials.com/news3.cfm?item=4400 for an old article about cytomegalovirus possibly causing brain tumors in people... and as a new target for treatment.
This abstract shows that continuous low dose Temodar might be useful for recurrent GBMs and Anaplastic Astrocytomas, especially if the patient has not yet failed on Avastin.
An interesting side note is they found a smaller % of patients had mutation in EGFR than previously reported. Perhaps that means people with these mutations in general do not do well enough to take part in a trial after having a few recurrences. This has to be taken into consideration for the anti-EGFR trials..
I know it sounds obvious that the more tumor you take out the better the patient will do, but it was never really proven before. This is the most convincing evidence yet, and shows the importance of the 5-ALA dye and the brain tumor paint that I have been talking about recently. Both of these allow the surgeon to see where the tumor is and result in a more complete resection. Both are not yet approved in the USA. 5-ALA is approved and used routinely in Europe and in trials in the USA.Tumor paint is in early trials in the USA.
This is from our friends at VABC. If you had a good experiance with a neuro-oncologist or social worker, nominate them!
Just a quick update to show how YOUR donations are being used!
This is an interesting treatment. Cotara is a monoclonal antibody against the parts of a cell that are exposed when they are dying - combined with a radioactive Iodine. The hallmark of glioblastomas is necrosis - which seems to make this an ideal target for Cotara.
This article is scathingly against the company that i developing this treatment. Don't worry about that nonsense. The author has no knowledge of the science involved - he is just worried about money. What he missed was that 10 years ago, the technology to deliver treatments like this using CED (Convection enhanced delivery) was just being developed. Typically less than half of the patients would get the drug to the right location. And this was with the best surgeons in the USA. In India - forget about it.
I think that we are now at the point where CED can hit the target consistently - at least 90% of the time, and will get better with the experiance of the surgeon. That alone should greatly increase the chances of this treatments' success! The trial should be open soon. I think it is worth considering.
This article says that the every other week schedule of low dose Temodar did not work for recurrent glioblastomas who failed the standard schedule of Temodar.
Looks like the FDA finally understands what we are going through. It kills me that treatments that are looking great in clinical trials have to wait years to become available. Especially things that are relatively harmless and are used in addition to the standard treatment, such as the vaccines (CDX-110, DC-VAX and ICT-107 are the front runners and there are a few more vaccines), as well as 5-ALA - the dye that lights up brain tumors so the surgeon can get more out. We need to help the companies that make these drugs get "breakthrough" status..
I usually don't publish stories about lawsuits but this brings up an important point: When you are told the scan is "stable" that usually means that there is less than about 25% growth or shrinkage. If you have a string of 4 "stable" scans in a row, and each one actually had 24% growth, you could have a tumor double in size and still be called stable. It is imperative to go back to the original post-op or post-radiation scan and compare that to the current scan.
