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 August 2023 edition in full online here.
Some highlights from this month’s round-up:
- The 2023 International Brain Tumour Awareness Week (Saturday, 28th October to Saturday 4th November 2023, inclusive) is now here! This special week is a celebration of awareness-raising activities around the world in which the international brain tumour community unites to draw attention to the challenges of brain tumours and the need for increased research and support efforts. Find out more here.
- A paper published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology has recommended that there should be an update to the RANO (Response Assessment in Neuro-Oncology) criteria. RANO 2.0 would be an important update that provides one single set of standard criteria for investigators to use for clinical research in both high- and low-grade glioma.
- According to a study published in Nature Communications, researchers have discovered a genetic explanation for a subset of meningiomas which did not previously have a well-defined cause. Study co-author Amy Heimberger, MD, PhD, said: “Number one, this study provides us with a potential target for patients that have the hedgehog pathway activated, which may be responsive to drugs that block this pathway.”
- According to research published in Cancer Cell, researchers from Cima and the Clínica Universidad de Navarra, together with the international cooperative group Diffuse Midline Glioma (DMG-ACT), have confirmed that blocking an immune checkpoint molecule successfully targets diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma tumours in mice and prolongs their survival.
- The Ivy Brain Tumor Center at Barrow Neurological Institute in the United States has announced initial results from a Phase 0/1 clinical trial of the ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) kinase inhibitor AZD1390 in recurrent glioblastoma in combination with radiation therapy. The analysis shows that AZD1390 is well-tolerated in recurrent glioblastoma patients, achieving pharmacologically relevant concentrations in gadolinium non-enhancing tumour tissue, and substantially suppressing activation of the ATM target, pRAD50, in response to radiation.
- Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the United States used a novel oncolytic (‘cancer killing’) virus that could infect cancer cells and stimulate an anti-tumour immune response. The results of this study, published in Nature, showed the safety and preliminary efficacy of the novel oncolytic virus approach in recurrent high-grade glioma patients from a phase 1 clinical trial. Extended survival was seen in those patients whose immune system had produced antibodies to the virus (14.2 vs 7.8 months).
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