New treatments extending lives in glioblastoma patients

If there’s anyone equipped to confront the threat of the deadly brain cancer glioblastoma, it’s Senator John McCain.

Not only did the former Navy fighter pilot manage to survive two close brushes with death during the Vietnam War, but he also made it through five and a half years as a captive of the Viet Cong, during which he was kept in solitary confinement and brutally beaten.

What he faces now, however, may prove to be his toughest battle yet — against an aggressive kind of cancer whose typical outlook isn’t much longer than a year.

With this diagnosis, McCain joins over 12,000 other Americans per year who hear the sobering news that they have glioblastoma and are rushed into surgery, radiation, and chemo.

But right now, as you’re reading this, there are dozens of new treatments on the horizon for this killer, including one that’s in use and helping patients live longer than ever before.

Zapping cancer cells

Glioblastoma is a sneaky cancer that can be removed and treated to the point where it actually seems as if it’s going away… but then usually reemerges stronger than ever.

Even if surgeons are able to remove every bit of what they find, that still doesn’t offer any sort of a cure. The original surgical treatment for this cancer years ago was to remove the entire half of the brain where it was found — and even that drastic procedure didn’t help patients live any longer!

But there is an unusual treatment that does — and believe it or not, it isn’t a drug.

It’s a device called the Optune, and it was OK’d by the FDA just two years ago. The Optune is a cap made up of electrodes that completely cover the head and create low-intensity, alternating electric fields that interrupt cell division and zaps brain cancer cells. While healthy cells also divide, that doesn’t happen nearly as often as with cancer cells.

So far, the Optune has been found to increase the survival rate across the board, with the most dramatic effects seen after five years.

Remember: That’s four years after most patients with this type of cancer are expected to survive. Yet more than double the number of patients who wore the Optune cap every day for two years were still alive at the five-year mark, compared to patients who only received chemo.

Reports about the cap claim that doctors are hesitant to use it because they say we really don’t understand the “science” behind the device. But seriously, even if that is the case, the same thing can be said for most drugs.

At around $21,000 a month, treatment with the Optune isn’t cheap. And while most private insurers will cover it, Medicare won’t. However, the CEO of Novocure, the company that makes the device, says that it has “never refused a patient” and will foot the bill for the therapy if necessary.

Other cutting-edge treatments being utilized include creating customized “vaccines” to target the different kinds of cells these tumors typically contain. Each cell has its own “molecular tricks,” which makes treatment difficult and chemo ineffective.

One therapy being worked on involves “profiling” what the most prevalent cells are in a glioblastoma, attacking those, and then doing the same analysis of the survivor cells to launch an attack on them as well.

If you or anyone you love is fighting this deadly cancer, having the tumor genetically profiled may be one of the most important steps in designing a treatment. While the cost for that is in the thousands, that type of analysis will be able to tell if the tumor is “more uniform” and if one specific type of attack may be successful.

Another important line of defense for brain cancer patients is their diet. A ketogenic diet that’s high in fat and extremely low in carbs has been found in several studies over the years to slow brain tumor growth.

The theory is that since brain tumor cells can only burn glucose, shutting off their food supply literally starves them. Healthy brain cells, on the other hand, can utilize either glucose or ketones — what your body will produce when you stop eating all those carbs and sugar.

“A treatment option for McCain: an electric cap that kills brain cancer cells” Adam Feuerstein, July 20, 2017, STAT, statnews.com