Despite undergoing an operation on 27 December, followed by courses of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, Mr Read was told in July his tumour was growing again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was fully expecting the tumour to return due to its aggressive nature,\u201d he said. \u201cI know the outcome isn\u2019t great and I was happy to explore anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n
He was then offered the chance to become the first patient in a clinical trial aiming to cure the disease, run by the University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH).<\/p>\n
In the CITADEL-123 trial, surgeons remove as much tumour as possible before implanting a small medical device called an Ommaya reservoir under the scalp, which connects to the tumour via a small tube.<\/p>\n
The nuclear medicine team at UCLH then inject a drug \u2013 ATT001, which helps repair DNA damage in cells \u2013 directly into the tumour to deliver small amounts of radioactivity.<\/p>\n
The drug, given weekly for four to six weeks, causes lethal damage to tumour cells but leaves healthy tissue unaffected.<\/p>\n
Since starting the experimental treatment, Mr Read has seen his tumour shrink by half in just a matter of weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis trial was a lifeline, as the likelihood of survival according to the data was a year or less for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am delighted to be given the opportunity to be part of this trial and I have not experienced any side effects from the injections.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am feeling very good,\u201d the engineer added. He also said he\u2019s not afraid of the treatment failing to cure his cancer if it can help others.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all dealt a hand of cards and you don\u2019t know which ones you are going to get,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be wonderful if this treatment helps me and if it doesn\u2019t, it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am more than happy \u2013 even it if doesn\u2019t benefit me, it may benefit someone else down the line. So I have got nothing to lose and everything to hope for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Paul Mulholland, UCLH consultant medical oncologist who designed the trial, said the reduction of Mr Read\u2019s tumour \u201cis really quite remarkable for somebody whose tumour is so aggressive\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to aim to cure this disease,\u201d he said. \u201cPrimary brain tumours do not metastasize around the body and generally stay in the same location in the brain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t spread to the rest of the body, so using a targeted \u2013 directly into the tumour \u2013 approach makes sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
A second patient is currently undergoing the same procedure, with one being treated a month by the team, and Dr Mulholland said the trial aims to have up to 40 patients treated.<\/p>\n
The dose of radiation will be increased throughout the trial and researchers plan to combine ATT001 with immunotherapy \u2013 which trains the body\u2019s immune system to kill cancerous cells.<\/p>\n
While he said early signs are promising, Dr Mulholland noted the trial is a \u201cfirst-in-human study so we\u2019ve been cautious in our approach and are only treating patients for six weeks\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on sky.com<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A new radioactive therapy has shrunk a man\u2019s deadly brain tumour by half, in what…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5648,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tradetrovex.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}