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See my editorial under the link to the full text of the article! This is a major breakthrough and must read article!
Click HERE for the full text article
Editor's comment (Al Musella, DPM, President of the Musella Foundation For Brain Tumor Research & Information, Inc):
This is a major step forward. In this trial of 61 patients who had recurrent glioblastoma, the survival at 5 years was 21% compared to 0% in the historical controls they used. Amazingly, once patients hit the 2 year point after the start of the trial, none of them died yet. There was a 21% survival at 24 months, as well as at 36 months, 48 months and 60 months.
One criticism is going to be lack of a blinded control group. I think they did a great job of matching controls. They used patients at Duke University Medical Center who would have fit the criteria for the trial. Keep in mind that the patients treated at Duke University usually do better than the historical controls we read about elsewhere. They show the patient characteristics, and it appears to be a fair comparison. The patients in the control group had a few less of some of the worse prognostic characteristics, but it was close and the difference in outcome is way better than would be expected. In other trials for recurrent Glioblastoma, the 36 month survival rate was reported around 3%.
This is still considered experimental and clinical trials will be opening very soon around the country. It is now open at Duke for both adults with recurrent Glioblastomas as well as for children with many types of recurrent malignant brain tumors.
Disclaimer: I am on the patient advisory board at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center, and the Musella Foundation has funded 2 research grants on this treatments (a very small part of the huge effort). I do not have any financial interest in the company that is developing this.