The International Brain Tumor Day is celebrated on June 8.
It is a day in which we want to give visibility to patients suffering from this pathology.
A researcher from the Neurology Department of the Ruber Internacional Hospital participates in a clinical trial that revolutionizes the treatment of brain gliomas.
(Madrid. Lucila Rodríguez)
The Director of the Neuro-Oncology Unit of the Ruber International Hospital, Juan Manuel Sepúlveda, has led a phase III clinical trial in Spain, in which 70 hospitals in 10 countries have participated, the results of which will revolutionize the treatment offered to patients with a type of brain glioma.
This is the brain glioma with mutation in the IDH1 and IDH2 genes, which is rare and usually appears between the ages of 25 and 50. In fact, in Spain alone, three per 100,000 inhabitants are detected each year, an incidence that may explain the scant progress that has been made in the last 15 years.
Until now, the treatment offered consisted of surgery, which usually causes neurological deficits in patients, and chemotherapy or radiotherapy sessions, which cause cognitive alterations and side effects such as tiredness or vomiting. However, the clinical trial has shown that if the drug vorasidemib is administered orally after surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy sessions can be delayed for years, or even avoided.
“We have seen that the quality of life of the patients is greatly improved, it causes almost no side effects and, in some cases, the tumor has even shrunk,” explains Dr. Sepúlveda. The results, therefore, are so striking in a tumor with few therapeutic options that they have been presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Oncology (ASCO) and published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
This trial has also opened up the possibility of using this drug in other medical contexts such as, for example, when chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions have already been received in order to prevent the tumor from appearing later, or to administer it at the same time as these sessions are given in order to enhance their effect.
It is expected to be available to patients in Spain by the end of the year or early 2024. “The results have opened up a path that we did not have before and that is very promising,” says the researcher.
Dr. Juan Manuel Sepúlveda, neurologist and oncologist, specialized in neuro-oncology, has been a member of the Neurology Service Team at the Ruber Internacional Hospital since 2011.
