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 2022 edition in full online here.
Some highlights from this month’s round-up:
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is predicted to set back European cancer outcomes by almost a decade. A new Commission from The Lancet Oncology, “European Groundshot – addressing Europe’s cancer research challenges”, highlights the pivotal importance of cancer research in tackling the unprecedented challenges facing European cancer systems and makes key recommendations for how this can be achieved.
- In an announcement widely publicised in the media and also presented at the Society for Neuro-Oncology (SNO) Annual Meeting, held in Florida, US, Northwest Biotherapeutics has announced in a press release the results of a phase 3 clinical trial showing that both newly diagnosed and recurrent glioblastoma patients treated with Northwest Biotherapeutics’ dendritic cell vaccine (DCVax®-L) had increased survival.
- The WHO (World Health Organization) has launched a new campaign to amplify the lived experience of people affected by cancer. The survey is part of a broader campaign to reflect the lived experiences of survivors, caregivers and the bereaved as part of the WHO Framework for Meaningful Engagement of People Living with Non-Communicable Diseases. Find out more here and take the online survey here.
- According to findings presented at the Society for Neuro-Oncology 27th Annual Meeting, held in Florida, USA from 16th-20th November, most of today’s phase 3 clinical trials of new therapies for newly diagnosed glioblastoma do not extend the lives of their participants.
- A clinical trial (“Sonic-ALA”) being carried out in Milan, Italy, to investigate the feasibility and safety of sonodynamic therapy (SDT) in patients with newly diagnosed glioblastomas is now recruiting patients, according to news published by the Focused Ultrasound Foundation.
- Writing in Nature Nanotechnology, a team of researchers has developed a new type of nanoparticle therapy for brain tumours, which they have developed and tested on mice with pancreatic cancer and glioblastoma and which successfully stimulated the immune system to attack the tumours. Termed ZnCDA, these tiny zinc-based particles accumulate within brain tumour tissue and are loaded with a compound from bacteria called cyclic dimeric adenosine monophosphate (CDA), which alerts the immune system to the tumour by triggering a molecular process known as STING (stimulator of interferon genes).
- Results of a phase 2 clinical trial published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology have shown that patients with progressive or recurrent meningiomas had a longer-than-expected period before regrowth when treated with GSK2256098, an experimental oral drug which blocks a molecule inside cells called focal adhesion kinase (FAK).
To see an archive of existing e-News issues, click here.
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