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 November 2023 edition in full online here.
Some highlights from this month’s round-up:
- Research published in the journal Nature has found that a BDNF, a molecule produced in the brain involved in learning and memory (through a process called plasticity), also appears to accelerate the growth of some brain tumours, including diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG).
- Researchers in the UK are developing a rapid finger-prick test, similar to COVID-19 tests, to detect the presence of a brain tumour. According to a news release, teams at Nottingham Trent University and the University of Sheffield are focussing on developing tests capable of detecting molecules in the blood which are specific to a tumour and would also give a “very early indication” of it returning.
- Results from the TADPOLE-G study have been published in the New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Oncology and, according to the authors, show a clear clinical benefit of combining dabrafenib and trametinib in BRAF mutated low- and high-grade paediatric gliomas respectively.
- 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. Researchers found that the combination therapy lessened chemotherapy side effects, improved overall response rate by over four-fold and increased median progression-free survival from 7.4 months (with standard chemotherapy drugs) to 20.1 months.
- A study published in Nature Communications reports that invasive brain tumour margins of high grade glioma (HGG) contain biologically distinct genetic and molecular alterations that indicate aggressive behaviour and disease recurrence.
- New data from Servier Pharmaceuticals’ clinical development programme for vorasidenib in IDH-mutant diffuse glioma, presented at the 28th Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) in Vancouver, Canada in November, showed that vorasidenib reduced tumour growth as measured by a blinded independent radiology committee.
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