Someone You Should Know: Lisa Peabody, Volunteer Brain Tumor Advocate

I invite you all to read this guest post by Lisa Peabody, a volunteer brain tumor advocate with the National Brain Tumor Society. 

Part of her posting is about her daughter Caroline who received a fatal diagnosis of a brain tumor in her brainstem.

Just as impactful is what she’s done as a result of that tragedy.

Here’s the link: http://blog.braintumor.org/guest-blog-fighting-change/

“New Trial Delivers Chemotherapy to Brain Tumor Through Artery in Leg”

Here’s a fairly recent press release which says that “Capital Institute for Neurosciences Begins Clinical Trial Delivering Chemotherapy Directly to Brain Tumors Starting with Incision in Leg.”

So why is this news?

For me, this goes back to Barbara Strauch and her well-researched book entitled “The Secret Life of the GROWN-UP Brain” in which she points out that “For years, scientists believed diet had little impact on our brains because they thought most nutrients didn’t cross the blood-brain barrier.”

The same is true for medications that would whack brain cancers, they have a hard time permeating the blood-brain-barrier.

That’s where the Capital Institute’s idea becomes interesting, according to the press release, “During the procedure, done at Capital Health Medical Center – Hopewell, Dr. Erol Veznedaroglu, an endovascular neurosurgeon, threaded a tiny catheter through the patient’s femoral artery in the leg, up through the body and neck and into the brain. Once the catheter reached the brain, chemotherapy was released to the blood vessels that feed the tumor. The drugs were carried by the natural blood flow of the vessels to infuse the tumor with the cancer-fighting agent.”

Interested? Here’s a link: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/07/prweb12010651.htm

Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_hfsimaging'>hfsimaging / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

A new meaning for “Passing the Sniff Test”: Cancer Detection

Ms. Angela Zimm in a Bloomberg article reports that University of Pennsylvania researchers have found that Tsunami (pictured above) is more than 90 percent successful in identifying the scent of ovarian cancer in tissue samples, opening a new window on a disease with no effective test for early detection that kills 14,000 Americans a year.  When found early, there’s a five-year survival rate of over 90 percent.

Impressed? But wait, there’s more!

The largest study ever done on cancer-sniffing dogs found they can detect prostate cancer by smelling urine samples with 98 percent accuracy. “Our study demonstrates the use of dogs might represent in the future a real clinical opportunity if used together with common diagnostic tools,” said Gian Luigi Taverna, the author of the prostate cancer research reported yesterday at the American Urological Association in Boston.

Here’s a link to the article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-18/canines-cancer-sniffing-snouts-offer-new-testing-option.html

John

PS - Given the way my dog, Louis, used to greet strangers, the prostate finding doesn’t surprise me at all

ABTA CommYOUnity

Here’s a video on the American Brain Tumor Association’s new grassroots volunteer program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx94Gxv57h4#t=23

GBM: Where to find more detailed (survival) stats?

Everybody I’ve met who’s had a brain tumor wants to know the stats: what are my odds? How long will I live? What if I eat lots of chia seeds? I’m a stage III GBM, what are those odds? 

There’s a great discussion of all this on the Inspire website right now: http://www.inspire.com/groups/american-brain-tumor-association/discussion/gbm-where-to-find-more-detailed-stats/?ref=as&asat=183201391  

The discussion thread was started with the following questions: “I've read all the general stats for a grade IV GBM, but where can I find more detailed information? For instance, how does the survival rate differ for operable vs. inoperable tumors? How does it differ by age group? Is there a site or source that gives details such as these?”

Copyright: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/profile_gabivali'>gabivali / 123RF Stock Photo</a>