Glioblastoma multiform or GBM is the most common and most aggressive of the primary brain tumors. It affects men slightly more than women in all age groups, but recent findings reveal incidence increase among the elderly. This highly malignant form of brain tumor infiltrates brains extensively and enormously, giving few sufferers only about 3 years of survival rate and an even fewer patients about 5 years. Usually, sufferers survive only 12 months after diagnosis. The medical improvements hardly provide the sufferers hope. Even major improvements in adjuvant chemotherapy, neuroimaging, neurosurgery, radiation treatment techniques, and supportive care shed a very dim light of survival.
Long dark night sure ends to let light shine, and this is also true for glioblastoma sufferers. In their relentless efforts to find cure for this aggressive brain cancer, medical scientists at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Duke University Medical Center proved to be just the right people in lab coats, having found a vaccine that extends survival on glioblastoma patients.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the vaccine acts by blocking EGFRvIII, a growth factor that fuels the brain cancer’s aggressiveness. The new EGFRvIII vaccine eliminates cancer cells that carry the said cancer marker, thus extending patient survival with a longer progression-free period.
According to Darell D. Bigner, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Cente and the senior of the study, “About a third of all glioblastomas are fueled by a very aggressive cancer gene, called EGFRvIII; these tumors are the “worst of the worst.” Our study showed that the vaccine eliminated all of the cancer cells carrying this marker in all but one of our study participants.”
The study had 18 participants who were all recently diagnosed with glioblastomas. Their conditions were compared to that of 17 other control patients. Both groups have undergone surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. A month after receiving radiation therapy, the vaccine group were started receiving the injections and were given it for as long the treatment proves to have effect on them. The control group continued to receive the same treatments but without the vaccine.
EGFRvIII vaccine or peptide vaccine allowed the vaccine group to experience median survival time of 26 months, while those in the control group who did not receive the injections only survived 15 months. Average progression-free survival for the vaccine group was 14.2 months, while the other group only 6.3 months.
While EGFRvIII vaccine provided just an extended survival, future advent discoveries might provide cure. Night can be long, but when we see the dawn coming, we know the bright noon will follow. In the meantime, medical scientists also wear the nursing shoes to closely look into what needs to be done with glioblastoma patients.
Long dark night sure ends to let light shine, and this is also true for glioblastoma sufferers. In their relentless efforts to find cure for this aggressive brain cancer, medical scientists at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Duke University Medical Center proved to be just the right people in lab coats, having found a vaccine that extends survival on glioblastoma patients.
The study, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the vaccine acts by blocking EGFRvIII, a growth factor that fuels the brain cancer’s aggressiveness. The new EGFRvIII vaccine eliminates cancer cells that carry the said cancer marker, thus extending patient survival with a longer progression-free period.
According to Darell D. Bigner, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Cente and the senior of the study, “About a third of all glioblastomas are fueled by a very aggressive cancer gene, called EGFRvIII; these tumors are the “worst of the worst.” Our study showed that the vaccine eliminated all of the cancer cells carrying this marker in all but one of our study participants.”
The study had 18 participants who were all recently diagnosed with glioblastomas. Their conditions were compared to that of 17 other control patients. Both groups have undergone surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. A month after receiving radiation therapy, the vaccine group were started receiving the injections and were given it for as long the treatment proves to have effect on them. The control group continued to receive the same treatments but without the vaccine.
EGFRvIII vaccine or peptide vaccine allowed the vaccine group to experience median survival time of 26 months, while those in the control group who did not receive the injections only survived 15 months. Average progression-free survival for the vaccine group was 14.2 months, while the other group only 6.3 months.
While EGFRvIII vaccine provided just an extended survival, future advent discoveries might provide cure. Night can be long, but when we see the dawn coming, we know the bright noon will follow. In the meantime, medical scientists also wear the nursing shoes to closely look into what needs to be done with glioblastoma patients.
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