CLEVELAND – Researchers from University Hospitals Case Medical Center report promising results from a cutting-edge research study that treated the aggressive brain tumors glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) using a novel type of imaging called MR spectroscopy coupled with high dose radiation in the form of Gamma Knife radiosurgery. 

Patients’ survival rates increased by almost four months (3.7 months) compared with patients who were treated with traditional conventional radiotherapy alone.

“The four month increase is quite significant as the median survival of patients treated with conventional radiotherapy alone is only one year,” said Douglas B. Einstein, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study and Vice Chairman and Clinical Director of the Department of Radiation Oncology at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and Assistant Professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

CLEVELAND – The National Institutes of Health has awarded $800,000 for a novel clinical trial, led by researchers at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center, testing a drug that targets stem cells of glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), the most common and aggressive type of brain cancer. Funded though the NIH’s 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act stimulus package, the multi-center national study is coordinated through the Adult Brain Tumor Consortium.

GBM, which is notorious for growing back within months of surgery, is the type of cancer that recently killed Sen. Edward Kennedy. GBM stem cells, which are resistant to radiation and chemotherapy, are believed to be the reason that these tumors recur even after complete surgical removal.

CLEVELAND – Clinical research out of University Hospitals Case Medical Center has found that African Americans with a common form of lung cancer have a lower frequency of drug-sensitizing genetic mutations, which may impact response to new cancer-fighting drugs.  Published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Rom Leidner, MD, and colleagues report that ethnicity plays a significant role in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) genetics and more personalized treatments may be beneficial to cancer patients. 

African American patients with NSCLC are significantly less likely than Caucasian counterparts to harbor activating mutations of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene in their cancers, which suggests that common oral EGFR inhibitor drugs, such as Tarceva® (erlotinib), are unlikely to yield dramatic remissions. Additionally, cancer biopsy testing revealed that African American patients with NSCLC are significantly more likely to have increased copies of the EGFR gene than Caucasians.  Detection of increased copies of the Her2 gene in breast cancer, a gene closely related to EGFR, has been the basis for major advances in therapy using drugs which target Her2.

CLEVELAND – Researchers from the Memory and Cognition Center at University Hospitals Case Medical Center will begin testing an intriguing new approach to slowing down the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) using Intravenous Immune Globulin (IGIV), also known as gammaglobulin. IGIV is traditionally used to treat primary immunodeficiency disorders, but is not currently approved for treating AD, which is one of the leading causes of dementia in the elderly. 

Initial research in experimental models and patients suggests that immunotherapy targeting beta amyloid (the protein that forms the core of plaques in the brain) may provide a more effective way to treat AD. Antibodies that bind to beta amyloid are present in IGIV, which is made from the blood of several thousand healthy adults. 

One of the hallmarks of AD pathology is an abundance of beta-amyloid deposits in the brain. While it is not yet known if beta amyloid plaques cause AD or are a byproduct of the disease, scientists are interested in finding ways to reduce the toxic effects of beta amyloid on the brain. Antibodies against beta amyloid may do so by binding to toxic forms of beta amyloid, thereby neutralizing them and/or promoting their elimination.