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MEDIA RELEASE
Following release of the largest reported glioma brain tumor management survey in the world to date, the International Brain Tumour Alliance (IBTA) has called on governments, researchers and pharmaceutical companies, to redouble their efforts to identify therapies that will assist brain tumour patients.
High grade gliomas are the most malignant of all primary brain tumors. A study reported in the Medical Journal of Australia today (20 March 2006 See: http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/184_06_200306/ros11063_fm.html ) tracked over a three year period the management and outcome for 828 patients newly diagnosed with glioma in the Australian state of Victoria.
It identified median survival as 9.2 months with a five-year survival of 19% and only 3% for those with the highly malignant glioblastoma multiforme brain tumors.
At the present time there is no known cause of these lethal tumors and so they cannot be screened for or prevented. Diet and lifestyle changes do not appear to be relevant, they can hit men or women of all ages, regardless of their overall health. Mobile phones have not been implicated despite numerous extensive surveys.
“Governments need to adopt a more sympathetic approach to any therapeutic development for patients which extends survival with good quality of life, even if it is only for a few months, Mr Denis Strangman, Chair of the IBTA, said in Canberra today.
“In brain tumor terms that is equivalent to a ‘quantum leap’ and yet the drug regulatory authorities in some jurisdictions adopt a very miserly attitude demanding cost-effective targets that are unrealistic for this kind of cancer.
“At the present time, for example, brain tumor patients in the UK are being denied access to new therapies which have already been adopted in the USA, Canada, Australia and many European countries. The uptake for these therapies is very uneven and depends on what part of the world you live in. Patients in the developing countries are the most disadvantaged.
“As representatives of those involved in attempting to support and advocate for brain tumor patients we ask that more resources and research attention be devoted to this cancer. Occasional advances in treatment therapies only once every 20 or 30 years is unacceptable,” Mr Strangman said.
Canberra
Australia
20 March 2006
Contact: string@theibta.org
Phone: 61 + 2 + 62583912
www.theibta.org