Brain Tumor News and Research

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A Brain Tumor is the growth of abnormal cells in the tissues of the brain. Brain tumors can be benign (not cancer) or malignant (cancer).

Evidence shows bevacizumab therapy improves survival in patients with glioblastoma

A new population-based study has found that patients with glioblastoma who died in 2010, after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of bevacizumab, had lived significantly longer than patients who died of the disease in 2008, prior to the conditional approval of the drug for the treatment of the deadly brain cancer. Bevacizumab is used to treat patients with certain cancers whose cancer has spread. The study appears in the journal Cancer.

20 Aug 2013

Phase II trial to investigate vaccine therapy combined with Avastin for patients with recurrent GBM

Northwestern Medicine- recently joined a landmark clinical trial to investigate if a vaccine made from a patient's own brain tumor is effective in slowing tumor progression and extending survival.

16 Aug 2013

Researchers suggest neural stem cells may regenerate after anti-cancer treatment

Scientists have long believed that healthy brain cells, once damaged by radiation designed to kill brain tumors, cannot regenerate. But new Johns Hopkins research in mice suggests that neural stem cells, the body's source of new brain cells, are resistant to radiation, and can be roused from a hibernation-like state to reproduce and generate new cells able to migrate, replace injured cells and potentially restore lost function.

13 Aug 2013

Researchers explore potential of neural stem cells to repair brain damage

Scientists have long believed that healthy brain cells, once damaged by radiation designed to kill brain tumors, cannot regenerate. But new Johns Hopkins research in mice suggests that neural stem cells, the body’s source of new brain cells, are resistant to radiation, and can be roused from a hibernation-like state to reproduce and generate new cells able to migrate, replace injured cells and potentially restore lost function.

13 Aug 2013

Understanding the movement of neurons sheds light on how cancer cells invade health tissues

The invasion of brain-tumor cells into surrounding tissue requires the same protein molecule that neurons need to migrate into position as they differentiate and mature, according to new research from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine and published August 7 in the online journal PLOS ONE.

8 Aug 2013

Brain tumor cells in arrested development contribute to cell variety that protects cancer

A program that pushes immature cells to grow up and fulfill their destiny as useful, dedicated cells is short-circuited in the most common and deadly form of brain tumor, scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center report this week in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

8 Aug 2013

UCLA researchers combine cellular and gene therapies to develop treatment for breast cancer

Researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have successfully combined cellular therapy and gene therapy in a mouse-model system to develop a viable treatment strategy for breast cancer that has spread to a patient's brain.

7 Aug 2013

Affymetrix introduces new OncoScan FFPE Assay Kit

Affymetrix, Inc. announced the launch of the new OncoScan™ FFPE Assay Kit, a whole-genome copy number assay for highly degraded FFPE solid tumor samples, at the Cancer Cytogenomics Microarray Consortium conference being held in Chicago this week.

5 Aug 2013

UCLA researchers develop treatment approach for breast cancer metastasized to brain

Researchers at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) have successfully combined cellular therapy and gene therapy in a mouse model system to develop a viable treatment strategy for breast cancer that has metastasized, or spread, to the patient's brain.

2 Aug 2013

Researchers identify novel approach to enhance tissue repair and organ regeneration

Because most human tissues do not regenerate spontaneously, advances in tissue repair and organ regeneration could benefit many patients with a wide variety of medical conditions.

1 Aug 2013

Emergency physicians correctly identify nearly 100% of patients with Bell's palsy

Emergency physicians correctly identified nearly 100 percent of patients with Bell's palsy, the symptoms of which are nearly identical to potentially life-threatening diseases such as stroke and brain tumors.

26 Jul 2013

3-D hydrogel approach to study aggressive and deadly forms of brain cancer

Human glioblastoma multiforme, one of the most common, aggressive and deadly forms of brain cancer, is notoriously difficult to study. Scientists have traditionally studied cancer cells in petri dishes, which have none of the properties of the brain tissues in which these cancers grow, or in expensive animal models.

24 Jul 2013

Digital versions of standard molecular biology tool to detect common tumor-associated mutation in CSF

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers and their colleagues have used digital versions of a standard molecular biology tool to detect a common tumor-associated mutation in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with brain tumors. In their report being published in the open-access journal Molecular Therapy - Nucleic Acids, the investigators describe using advanced forms of the gene-amplification technology polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to analyze bits of RNA carried in membrane-covered sacs called extracellular vesicles for the presence of a tumor-associated mutation in a gene called IDH1.

24 Jul 2013

Nanotechnology drug kills brain-tumor cells and retards growth of tumor blood vessels

An experimental drug in early development for aggressive brain tumors can cross the blood-brain tumor barrier and kill tumor cells and block the growth of tumor blood vessels, according to a study led by researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James).

19 Jul 2013

Childhood cancer survivors can still get pregnant despite increased risk of infertility

Although women who survived childhood cancer face an increased risk of infertility, nearly two-thirds of those who tried unsuccessfully to become pregnant for at least a year eventually conceived, according to clinical researchers at Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital. This is comparable to the rate of eventual pregnancy among all clinically infertile women.

15 Jul 2013

CMS to settle payment fight over Gamma Knife

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has proposed a new rule that would effectively put to rest a provision inserted into last year's fiscal cliff bill by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) to help a U.S. company.

12 Jul 2013

Orlando Health and UF health partner to expand neurosurgery program

Orlando Health and the University of Florida department of neurosurgery have partnered to expand the neurosurgery program at Orlando Health with the opening of a specialized practice, UF Health Neurosurgery — Orlando Health.

10 Jul 2013

Study confirms role of MAPK mutations in pilocytic astrocytomas

Brain cancer is the primary cause of cancer mortality in children. Even in cases when the cancer is cured, young patients suffer from the stress of a treatment that can be harmful to the developing brain. In a search for new target structures that would create more gentle treatments, cancer researchers are systematically analyzing all alterations in the genetic material of these tumors.

10 Jul 2013

Professor receives grant to explore therapeutic agent, treatment method for brain cancer

The problem with cancer treatments designed to kill a tumor is that they can kill the patient's quality of life as well. Now a Florida State University College of Medicine researcher is shifting the focus from eradicating brain tumors to managing them.

4 Jul 2013

UVA researchers identify promising target for treating glioblastoma

Researchers at the University of Virginia Cancer Center have identified a promising target for treating glioblastoma, one that appears to avoid many of the obstacles that typically frustrate efforts to develop effective treatments for this deadliest of cancers.

2 Jul 2013