We learned yesterday of Vice-President Biden’s loss of his 46 year old son to brain cancer. The type of cancer has not been released, but most experts believe it was brain cancer called Glioblastoma.
We are still seeking the “magic bullet” for a cure and once again we are getting really great news from the cancer researchers. We all know our immune system protects us from so many illnesses and disease, but has not been able to combat cancer as successfully.
Researchers are now suggesting our immune system can combat, and perhaps eliminate one of the most aggressive and fatal cancers, that of brain glioblastomas. Surgery is often risky and doesn’t often allow for the complete removal of this deadly cancer. The median survival time is only 15 months and the quality of life during the last five is not good.
Science Daily, a medical research newsletter reports, “Houston Methodist Neurological Institute neurosurgeon David Baskin, M.D., is presenting preliminary data from a phase II clinical trial that suggests gene therapy, (AdV-Tk therapy), which uses a mediated herpes simplex virus, combined with a traditional treatment — surgical resection — could benefit glioblastoma patients with the worst prognoses.”
“From 2006 to 2010, 48 patients completed the experimental therapy. Their outcomes were compared to 134 patients who received surgical resection but no AdV-Tk therapy. While median survival increased 3.6 months (13.5 to 17.1 months), there was a 27 percent increase in overall survival at the end of five years. Baskin says that the data showed a dramatic improvement in survival for patients who underwent aggressive surgical excision, improving from 57 to 67 percent survival at 1 year, 22 to 35 percent at 2 years, and 8 to 19 percent at 3 years, with an overall improved survival of about eight months. Baskin says that “these results are far better that what we can now achieve with our present standard of care for treatment of patients with glioblastoma.”
Nearly 41% of everyone born today in the United States will face cancer once in their lifetime. One in two born in the U.K. after 1960 will be diagnosed with cancer. The good news is, treatments and remissions, both interim and long term, have increased remarkably.
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