Brain Cancer

New data suggest that patients with glioblastoma who are treated with valproic acid, an antiepileptic drug (AED), are likely to outlive patients who receive another type of AED or no AED at all.

Dr. Grimm from Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine Discusses Brain Cancer Risk Factors

The following is a roundup of TPS abstracts that feature trials open to patients aged >17 years with a broad range of cancer types.

Treatment with Herceptin, chemotherapy, or surgery extended the lives of patients with HER2-positive MBC following a diagnosis of CNS metastases.

The field of immunotherapy is brimming with questions that researchers are working to answer, and many of those efforts were on display at the ASCO annual meeting.

In the phase III EXIST-1 trial, Afinitor reduced the size of SEGAs-benign brain tumors associated with TSC-by ≥50% in one-third of patients.

Lapatinib and capecitabine is a reasonable approach in a well-informed patient with brain metastasis and HER2+ breast cancer

Links to resource from across the web for brain cancer; includes news briefs, patient education, research and clinical trials

A dendritic cell vaccine under development may increase median survival time in patients with glioblastoma

The FDA has approved a novel device that uses electric fields to treat aggressive brain tumors

An FDA panel voted 7 to 3 (2 abstentions) in support of the NovoTTF-100A System

Bob Gibbs knows the importance of cancer research and the life-saving therapies it creates. The 40-year-old husband and father of 4 would not be alive today without these new discoveries and innovations.

The shortage, which began in 2009, accelerated in 2010, and has shown no signs of abatement so far in 2011, according to Erin R. Fox, PharmD, manager of the Drug Information Service at University of Utah Health Care

Medulloblastoma, a malignant brain tumor that most commonly affects children, is not one disease but several, said researchers with St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

Useful Online Resources and Clinical Trials for Central Nervous System

The FDA has awarded a $600,000 grant for a phase I clinical trial of a genetically reprogrammed herpes simplex virus in young cancer patients with relapsed non-central nervous system (CNS) solid tumors such as sarcomas and neuroblastomas.

Useful Online Resources and Clinical Trials for Brain Cancer

The John Theurer Cancer Center (JTCC) at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey, one of the largest cancer centers in the United States

A meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials revealed treatment-related fatalities were 1.5 times higher for combination treatment with Avastin (bevacizumab) and chemotherapy versus chemotherapy alone

Hospitals, pharmacists, and physicians across the United States are reporting shortages of critical anticancer drugs, including carboplatin, cisplatin, dacarbazine, fludarabine, and cytarabine.

According to the U.S. National Cancer Institute, there are 19,000 new cases of primary brain cancer diagnosed each year. The five-year survival rate is around 30%. Brain cancers can strike all ages, and are the leading cause of cancer deaths in children under the age of 20.