The Cancer Advisor

It began during a card game in 1995. As Professor Ben Williams won poker hand after hand against his UCSD colleagues, he proudly arranged his chips in neat stacks to his right. To his left, a heaping pile of unruly chips was the first sign of his lurking, yet undiagnosed brain cancer. This was followed by problems with walking, parking his car, and other perceptual issues involving left-sided neglect, signs characteristic of stroke or brain injury. Right-sided brain lesions produce a condition where a person becomes strangely unaware of their left side. In Ben Williams’ case, it reflected brain cancer of the worst kind, a tumor known as Glioblastoma Multiforme [GBM], one with an average survival of little more than one year. After a March 30, 1995, MRI scan revealed the cancer that occupied his right parietal lobe, his Oncologist candidly told Ben that he would be lucky to survive 18 months even if he did everything right - that is if he dutifully followed all medical advice in receivi...

A collaborative project to bring the promise of cell therapy to patients with a deadly form of brain cancer has shown dramatic results among the first patients to receive the novel treatment. In a paper published today in The New England Journal of Medicine , researchers from the Mass General Cancer Center, a member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, shared the results for the first three patient cases from a phase 1 clinical trial evaluating a new approach to CAR-T therapy for glioblastoma (GBM). The trial, known as INCIPIENT, is designed to evaluate the safety of CARv3-TEAM-E T cells in patients with recurrent GBM. Just days after a single treatment, patients experienced dramatic reductions in their tumors, with one patient achieving near-complete tumor regression. In time, the researchers observed tumor progression in these patients, but given the strategy’s promising preliminary results, the team will pursue strategies to extend the durability of response. “This is a s...