Brain Tumour Awareness Month
May is Brain Tumour Awareness Month. Help to raise awareness and support those affected by brain tumours in the following ways:
- Follow the Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada on their various social media platforms, share your story, and make sure to include #TurnMayGrey
- Join a Brain Tumour Walk in your area
- Make a donation to brain tumour foundations: Brain Tumour Foundation of Canada or the National Brain Tumor Society
Synthetic Super-Enhancers Technology
“A promising new treatment for glioblastoma has been shown to eliminate the tumour and prevent recurrence in animal studies, achieving what researchers “thought impossible”.
Trogenix has announced the publication of its breakthrough pre-clinical data in Nature, reporting complete tumour eradication in 83% of treated cases and durable protection in a brain cancer model that closely mimics human glioblastoma.” Read article here.
Injected Viruses Show Promise
A novel treatment for glioblastoma, consisting of a combination of an oncolytic virus, engineered to selectively infect and kill cancer cells, and type of a targeted immunotherapy called immune checkpoint inhibition, is showing promise, prolonging patient survival. Read the article from the University of Toronto here.
More Funding
The Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center and Columbia University have been awarded a five-year, $10.6 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to advance glioblastoma research. For details, read this article.
Immunotherapy for Women
This is interesting: “Among glioblastoma patients, women may derive more benefit from immunotherapy than men, research suggests.”
See full article here.
Nanomedicine Has Potential
“Their study is the first to demonstrate an intravenous medication that can cross the blood-brain barrier. The discovery may one day lead to new clinical therapies for treating glioblastoma, and could lead to further therapies adopting their method for other “undruggable” tumors.”
Read more about how nanomedicine could be a potential treatment/cure for GBMs.
Chinese Medicine and GBMs
This study [PDF] reviews traditional Chinese medicine and how it can help with the treatment of GBMs.
Focused Ultrasound Shows Early Promise
A new study was released looking at focused ultrasound to help treat GBMs. To read the article, click here.
This is the orignial article citation:
Sheehan et al. (2020). Investigation of the tumoricidal effects of sonodynamic therapy in malignant glioblastoma brain tumors. Journal of Neuro-Oncology. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11060-020-03504-w
Lenox Hill
Check out the new series on Netflix called Lenox Hill. The series follows the incredible neurosurgeons at Lenox Hill Hospital as they help patients with GBMs.