New treatment for brain tumors increases lifespan

The most aggressive brain cancers usually kill in less than a year. Now a new radiation therapy could help patients live longer.

O glioblastoma – tumor that affects the Central Nervous System and develops in the brain or spinal cord – has a rapid evolution and is incurable.

The average survival time for people diagnosed over the age of 65 is between six and nine months, he told , Sujay Voraoncologist at Mayo Clinic.

However, a new therapy – presented in a December study in the journal The Lancet Oncology – can prolong patient survival and reduce the duration of treatment.

Sujay Vora and his colleagues focused on improving post-surgical chemotherapy and radiation for patients with glioblastoma.

They intended adjust radiation treatment to better target active areas of the tumor and reduce side effects for patients, which can include fatigue and cognitive disturbances.

Typically, patients’ tumors are mapped by MRI before they undergo radiation. Here, researchers added another type of imaging, called 18F-DOPA PET.

As Live Science details, this is a type of positron emission tomography (PET) – a technique in which doctors inject a small amount of radioactive tracer into the patient and the examination identifies the location where most of the tracer goes. .

This technique detects areas of unusual metabolism – including cancer cells, which have a more intense metabolism than healthy cells. 18F-DOPA PET uses a radioactive tracer that is particularly effective in detecting abnormalities in certain neurons.

Promising results

After surgery, 39 trial participants (all over the age of 5) received this new treatment for one to two weeks.

Although the typical survival time for diagnosis is less than one year, 22 of 39 patients were alive 12 months after treatment.

Furthermore, instead of a median survival of six to nine months, patients had a average of 13.1 months.

In some patients with a type of glioblastoma that is less resistant to treatment due to their genetics, survival time exceeded two years.

As Live Science praises, the results were so promising that the Mayo Clinic is open the trial to glioblastoma patients of all ages.