NHS trial uses targeted radiotherapy on brain tumours before surgery for better results
Representative image. Patients with brain tumours across the globe undergo surgery first.
The National Health Service (NHS) has started a clinical trial of a pioneering treatment technique which is aimed at extending the lives of people with brain tumours. A report by The Guardian on Thursday (February 2) said that a team including radiologists, neurosurgeons, oncologists and physicists are using detailed MRI scans and highly-targeted radiotherapy before surgery to reduce the likelihood of tumours growing back quickly, thereby helping patients to live longer.
At present, patients with brain tumours across the globe undergo surgery first, then radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy. Brain tumours are very difficult to treat. The Guardian report said that treatment options have not improved significantly in decades and despite extensive research, the standard procedure (surgery first, then radiotherapy and then chemotherapy) has never been challenged.
However, the team behind this clinical trial – codenamed POBIG (Pre-Operative Brain Irradiation in Glioblastoma) – at the Christie NHS foundation trust in Manchester, is planning to overturn the standard medical procedure.
Dr Gerben Brost, a radiation oncologist at the Christie and a senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, who is leading the team, said that the study is a significant milestone in brain cancer research and the culmination of 10 years of work for him.
“The order of radiotherapy and surgery should be challenged, and this could be the breakthrough we have been working towards for decades,” Dr Brost said. The trial is currently at an early stage but Dr Brost said the results so far had been “very encouraging”.
But he pointed out that surgery would always be essential. “Remnant tumour cells remain growing, potentially even more aggressively post-surgery in the recovery period, before the patient is given the standard course of radiotherapy,” he said, adding that better strategies are desperately needed to target all tumour cells at an earlier stage.
“As a tumour is likely to respond better to radiotherapy before the operation, we hope, by giving highly-targeted radiotherapy before surgery, to stop the tumour from growing back so quickly to improve outcomes and extend lives,” the team leader also said.
Patients who are part of the trial undergo an MRI which helps the surgeons estimate where remnant cells are most likely to be left after they operate. The report said that a single dose of radiation is aimed precisely at that area, and patients then have surgery followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Joel Rush, a director of a digital marketing agency he co-founded with his wife, is one of the first patients in the trial. Rush was diagnosed with glioblastoma after experiencing severe headaches and pain in October last year. “The doctors explained the reasons for using radiotherapy before surgery – made absolute sense – so I was very happy to participate in the trial,” he said.
Dr Brost, meanwhile, said that the team was pleased with how Joel Rush responded to the treatment and the results so far are encouraging.
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