The IBTA’s monthly e-News has been released and has emailed to all subscribers. Emailed to over 5,000 people around the globe, including clinicians, patients, researchers and others, it gives a round-up of the latest research and treatment developments, news about brain tumour patient organisations around the world, and key forthcoming neuro-oncology scientific and patient conferences. You can sign up to receive the e-News every month by registering here.
This month’s highlights
You can read the IBTA e-News March 2023 edition in full online here.
Some highlights from this month’s round-up:
- A paper published in The Lancet Oncology written by UK-based patient advocates has highlighted concerns over the UK Government’s proposed new ‘Major Conditions Strategy’, which intends to provide a “shift to integrated, whole-person care” that groups together all cancers with five other disease areas (cardiovascular diseases, including stroke and diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases, dementia, mental ill health and musculoskeletal disorders).
- Research in World Neurosurgery has found that there is “an urgent need to improve and develop existing and non-existent neuro-oncology infrastructure, personnel, and logistics” in the countries across Asia and Africa. Noting that 18 countries did not even have a neurosurgeon, the research team received a total of 110 responses from 92 countries (representing 86% of the countries in both continents) and categorised each into level of brain tumour care provision
- Data from a 17-patient phase 1 recurrent glioblastoma trial published in The Lancet Oncology have shown that a new type of therapy (LIPU-MB), which involves a low-intensity ultrasound-emitting device being implanted into the skull alongside an intravenous injection of microbubbles, is safe and opens the blood-brain barrier around a glioblastoma tumour, allowing a chemotherapy agent (albumin-bound paclitaxel) to enter.
- A lab study published in the Journal of Neuro-Oncology has revealed the apparent mechanism by which Tumor Treating Fields (TTFields) increase the effectiveness of temozolomide and lomustine in patients with glioblastoma. TTFields downregulates the DNA repair FA-BRCA pathway, which in turn increases the damage inflected by the chemotherapy combination.
- A study published in the journal Nature has found that glioblastoma tumours remodel normal brain pathways in order to accelerate their own growth, while also disturbing normal cognitive functions. Through several experiments on patients during surgery, on tumour tissue biopsies, in animals, and in cell biology tests, a research team found that glioblastoma patients had impaired word finding abilities (lexical retrieval) when a glioblastoma tumour was growing in the region of the brain related to language.
- A phase 2 clinical trial to investigate whether the cannabis-derived drug nabiximols (Sativex) alongside temozolomide can improve outcomes in recurrent glioblastoma is now underway in several centres in the UK, according to a news announcement. The three-year trial (ARISTOCRAT) will aim to recruit more than 230 glioblastoma patients at 14 National Health Service (NHS) hospitals, and patients will randomly receive either Sativex or a placebo, alongside temozolomide.
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