BrainBlog by Massachusetts Avenue Neuroscience

Diffusion MRI Can Track Brain Tumor Treatments

A special type of MRI can predict up to ten weeks earlier than traditional techniques if brain tumors are responding to chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Such predictions can spare patients from weeks of ineffective treatment and afford the opportunity to switch to potentially more effective therapies.

Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences . Medical Study News . University of Michigan Press Release

Brain Caner Drug Temodor Gets Wider Approval for Brain Caner

The FDA approved Schering-Plough's Temodar (temozolomide) for the 8,000 to 10,000 newly diagnosed patients each year with the most common form of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). While the drug received accelerated approval in 1999 to treat adult forms of a rarer brain tumor, anaplastic astrocytoma, if the tumor had relapsed after chemotherapy, the FDA granted a priority review for the more common indication after initial clinical trials found the drug extended survival period by an average of 20% when combined with radiation treatments compared to radiation alone. 

Associated Press

Gene Expression Profiling May Help Distinguish Types of Brain Tumors

According to a German study, gene-expression profiling may help to distinguish between benign and cancerous (malignant) brain tumors and aid in the identification of specific tumor types.

International Journal of Cancer

Gene Used In Brain Development Can Cause Childhood Brain Cancers

The OTX2 gene that's normally silenced after contributing to brain development was found to be expressed in cells from medulloblastoma, the most common form of pediatric brain malignancy in children.

The scientists discovered that a potent derivative of Vitamin A, known as all trans-retinoic acid or ATRA, suppressed growth and induced cell death among the OTX2-laden tumor cells. More than half of medulloblastomas grown in the laboratory responded to ATRA treatment

Science Daily Cancer Research

Brain Tumour Treatment Inconsistent

A survey of 788 patients with advanced malignant gliomas being treated at 52 centres in the US and Canada reveals that patients often don't receive chemotherapy or drugs that could help, or are given medication that might make things worse. 

CBC JAMA

Vaccine for Brain Tumors

Update on work being performed at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

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