Current Events > Some pretty good news about brain cancer treatment.

(+) Yeah! (+)

This article is originally from New York magazine (a reputable magazine) but the entire article is behind a paywall (https://tinyurl.com/ycxzwuan).

I first saw the article headline at humanprogress.org (https://humanprogress.org/immunotherapy-is-changing-cancer-treatment-forever/) and here's the portion of the article they post there:

Immunotherapy Is Changing Cancer Treatment Forever
JUL 19, 2024

Glioblastoma is the most common type of malignant brain cancer. It can strike at any age, and its uniformly fatal. Patients are often diagnosed in the emergency room after the tumor causes some somatic catastrophe, such as seizure, sudden loss of speech, or an inability to control the limbs on one side of the body. The median time from diagnosis to death is just over a year.

The first step in treating the disease hasnt changed in decades: maximal safe resection, a surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible while preserving neurological function. Because glioblastoma is so adept at infiltrating the brain, the surgeon almost always leaves cancer behind, which quickly starts growing again. Some patients respond to radiation or the chemotherapy drug temozolomide, but even that adds months rather than years to the average survival time. Roger Stupp, an expert in glioblastoma, told me the disease had proved to be a graveyard of ideas. Decades of research have gone nowhere.

Within the past 20 years, however, a once unfashionable field called immunotherapy has upended all expectations in oncology. It proceeds from a simple premise: The human immune system is very good at attacking anything it registers as disease. If it could be turned against cancer, it could eliminate a tumor more thoroughly than a surgeons knife and more durably than the poison of chemotherapy.

From New York Magazine.

Another portion (and the best part) of the article was posted at https://www.magzter.com/stories/lifestyle/New-York-magazine/HIS-BRAIN-TUMOR-WAS-A-HOPELESS-CASE-THEN-AN-EXPERIMENTAL-MEDICINE-MADE-IT-MELT-AWAY:

His Brain Tumor Was a Hopeless Case. Then an Experimental Medicine Made It Melt Away.
New York magazine|July 15-28, 2024
IMMUNOTHERAPY IS CHANGING CANCER TREATMENT FOREVER.
- CHRISTOPHER COX

ON A SCREEN ON THE FAR WALL, I COULD SEE A HOLE WHERE THE TUMOR HAD BEEN, AN ALMOST PERFECTLY ROUND MINIATURE PLANET.

One morning at the end of April 2023, Marcela Maus, a cancer researcher at Mass General in Boston, got a call from her colleague Bryan Choi. He called me, and hes like, Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! And Im like, What is going on? Maus said. Choi, a neurosurgeon with the languid demeanor of a surfer, was not given to outbursts. Maus hung up the phone and hurried over to his office.

The day before, Choi and Maus had treated their first patient in a clinical trial for an aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma, infusing genetically modified white blood cells directly into the fluid surrounding the brain. They had been up all night worrying, especially after the patient, a 74-yearold man, developed a fever. Choi had ordered an MRI. We were not looking for the results, he said. We were trying to make sure that our patient was okay.

When Maus got to Chois office, images from the MRI were loading on his screen. They stared in wonder: The patients tumor, which a few days before had shown up on the scan as a bright blob the size of a strawberry, had almost entirely disappeared. No one had heard of that kind of regression in glioblastoma, especially not overnight. My first instinct was that there was something wrong with the MRI scanner, Choi said. But then the follow-up scans looked even better.

Several weeks later, they treated a second patient, a civil engineer from upstate New York named Tom Fraser, and the process repeated itself: the infusion, the fever, and the rapid regression of the tumor. It was almost like clockwork, Maus said, still sounding astonished months later. After a third patient had a similar response, she paused the trial and wrote up her results.

TL;DR

Researchers at Mass General tested a new treatment for glioblastoma using modified white blood cells. In their trial, tumors in two patients disappeared almost completely overnight, marking a significant breakthrough in cancer treatment.

Doesn't surprise me! Immunotherapy is amazing and will soon make chemo and radiation mostly a thing of the past.

60 Minutes story from 2015 and a 2016 follow up about using modified polio to poison glioblastoma cells and get the immune system to target it, including the first people to receive the treatment back in 2012-3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEA6BQARqE8

Vice special on immunotherapy also from 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlK-PeCfezM

MLBloomy posted...

60 Minutes story from 2015 and a 2016 follow up about using modified polio to poison glioblastoma cells and get the immune system to target it, including the first people to receive the treatment back in 2012-3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEA6BQARqE8

Vice special on immunotherapy also from 2015.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlK-PeCfezM

I just finished watching both of these. Thank you for posting these!

Someone else made this topic, but the source was suspect, so the response was negative. Glad to see some legitimacy involved.

Guide posted...

Someone else made this topic, but the source was suspect, so the response was negative. Glad to see some legitimacy involved.

That was me actually LOL. I closed it.

So this was over a year ago and it went 3 for 3 on getting rid of a cancer with a 100% mortality rate.

What has happened since?

My father died from a type IV glioblastoma 12 years ago, parietal lobe, right near his ear. Hope that that doesn't have to happen any longer.

The_Sock posted...

That was me actually LOL. I closed it.

lol, thanks for the upgraded topic then

ZacharyBraun posted...

My father died from a type IV glioblastoma 12 years ago, parietal lobe, right near his ear. Hope that that doesn't have to happen any longer.

That was a while back, but it still sucks and I'm sorry.

ZacharyBraun posted...

My father died from a type IV glioblastoma 12 years ago, parietal lobe, right near his ear. Hope that that doesn't have to happen any longer.

Sorry to hear that man. I can't even imagine how rough that must've been for you. My condolences.

Guide posted...

lol, thanks for the upgraded topic then

Np. :)

foreverzero212 posted...

So this was over a year ago and it went 3 for 3 on getting rid of a cancer with a 100% mortality rate.

What has happened since?

I'm thinking of just paying the $1 for a month to read the whole article because I'm sure it reveals how things are for these people nowadays. If I were to guess, they are still alive and well.

I'm impressed.

@The_Sock how is your Dad doing?

Loving the news