Al's Comment:
The FDA approval for Optune limited it to use in patients 22 and old because that was the youngest patient in the trial and it hasn't been tested on younger patients. Obviously, it should help younger people. It can be prescribed for pediatric patients, off label, but insurance companies might try to reject it based on that FDA label restricting age. Reports like this help us fight the insurance companies!
I think the only real limit is the size of the head - the arrays are large and won't fit on a young child.
Posted on: 12/07/2016
CNS Oncol. 2016 Dec 5. [Epub ahead of print]
First report of tumor treating fields use in combination with bevacizumab in a pediatric patient: a case report.
O'Connell D1, Shen V1, Loudon W1, Bota DA1.
Author information:
1Department of Neurology, University of California, IrvineOr Medical Center, Orange, CA, USA.
Abstract
We report the first case of a pediatric patient with glioblastoma (GBM; WHO grade IV astrocytoma) successfully treated with tumor treating fields (TTF). The patient was diagnosed with GBM when 13 years of age and progressed through surgical resection, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Discrete tumor growth visualized on MRI with stable neurological examination was monitored for 6 months with subsequent stable disease observed radiographically and clinically for 7 months while adherent to Optune® (TTF). TTF thereby played a role in forestalling recurrent GBM growth in this young woman for 7 months without significant adverse effects. We propose that TTF therapy is a potential valuable treatment in this small, but sick, patient population.
PMID: 27918194 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
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