Monday 30 October 2017

MetaCurcumin

Is anyone familiar with this brand? http://bit.ly/2yXZGci    How does one tell that a product is legit?  Thanks in advance.

Friday 27 October 2017

Complete responses in Tocagen phase 1 trial

Tocagen just released data showing that in their phase 1 trial for injection of Toca511 into the resection cavity (NCT01470794), two of the partial responders became complete responders, bringing the total number of complete responses up to 6 out of 56 patients in the trial.  However, in a subanalysis of the higher dose cohorts, 5 out of 23 were complete responders (22% complete response rate).  These responses are also durable, with median duration of response being not yet reached at a median follow up of 35.7 months.

View press release here, and download the full PDF of the presentation here (Oct 27 2017 presentation).

Monday 23 October 2017

Temodar and CCNU

We finally convinced our NO to give our son Temodar and CCNU for his recurrence. Our NO wants to do it every 42 days. However, we are uncomfortable with such long gaps, especially considering his platelets are good. Do you know of any studies with shorter periods between administration that I can refer our doctor to? Thank you !

ABT-263 experimental drug or feasible solution in the near future?

Hi.

Just stumbled across this article. Published a while back but just recently made available online.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00984-9

I know it is still about saving mice ;), but it is indeed interesting given the preliminary results.

However I can´t really distill whether ABT263 is an existing drug developed for other purposes (http://www.selleckchem.com/products/ABT-263.html), if it is experimental but in human trials or if its experimental and to this point only applied to xenographs.

Any views/perspectives on the application of ABT-263?

Sunday 15 October 2017

Hello all-

My mom was diagnosed with glioblastoma in February. She underwent surgery than had standard temodar plus radiation. Her tumor was unmethylated and IDH1 negative. My parents live in Massachusetts and we enrolled her into the Survax trial:

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02455557

I have attached her original tumor genetic analysis in jpeg format (sorry)



Unfortunately, 8 months after diagnosis she has had recurrence at original tumor site. She is undergoing surgery again for tumor debulking and symptom control next week.

She is functionally still active with her main symptom being a left visual field defect.

I would appreciate any thoughts/recs on what clinical trials and treatment options we should pursue.

Thanks in advance

Tuesday 10 October 2017

Immunotherapy and cannabis

Hi,

Does anyone have information on concurrent use of immunotherapy and cannabis? I read that cannabis can have anti-inflammatory effects primarily due to it suppressing the immune system. This seems worrisome if the patient is on immunotherapy. All I could find is one retrospective study on cannabis and opdivo use: http://oncologypro.esmo.org/Meeting-Resources/ESMO-2017-Congress/The-effect-of-cannabis-use-on-tumor-response-to-Nivolumab-in-patients-with-advanced-malignancies

Has anyone's doctor mentioned a possible contraindication?

Thank you.

Wednesday 4 October 2017

Accessing clinical trials in US from overseas

My wife started off with a Grade 2 astrocytoma but throughout the years has now progressed to a Grade 4 GBM that isn't responding well to TMZ. We are looking into clinical trial options but there aren't many options where we live, so we are exploring options in the US.

Has anybody else had the experience of travelling to the US to access clinical trials? I understand that it will be extremely expensive, and a logistical challenge to organise. We are willing to take on the expense if it is a trial that is worth it. Really wanted to hear from anybody else who have gone down this path.

We are also only starting to look through trial options, primarily in the US. If anybody has any recommendation as to the most promising trials that are happening at this point, we would really appreciate any guidance and advice.

Avastin, CCNU or Carboplatin (via port)?

Dear all,
My son's H3K27 glioma has recurred, in and outside of the original tumor bed. He was treated with ONC201 ( for only about a month or so), and then had a bleeding in the brain. Hence ONC201 was stopped ( even though we are positive it was bot caused by it).
We are looking into radiosurgery and are continuing with sativex, cusp9 etc. Our radiosurgery oncologist thinks Avastin offers the most hope. However, our NO refuses to use it de to the bleeding. He is only willing to do one agent - either Irinotican, or CCNu or carboplatin via port.
We are looking into some other NO willing to do avastin - or is it better to go with carboplatin?
Thank you!