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Started by BatemanDorsia
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also, does anyone who Sen. Kennedy's radiation oncologist will be at MGH? Dr. Loeffler?
More than likely . . .
Interestingly, it appears that Kennedy only got a sub-total resection at Duke. The planned operative time was 6 hours, he was only in for 3. They probably openend him up and quickly saw there was not a whole lot they could do.
My (uninformed) guess is that the nerurosurgeons at MGH thought he was inoperable but I suppose that Dr. Friedman at Duke told him that a GTR was within the realm of possiblity. Interestingly, this is a great PR coup for Duke even though they did not help him in the long run (STR does not equal "success"). Though, at this point, XRT + Temodar is not going to do a whole lot when there is still a large chunk of GBM left.
Steph, would love to hear your throughts on this one though I understand if you would prefer not to comment . . .
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I'm sure the Duke surgeons were able to get as good of an STR as possible, and the extent of resection is important to some degree.
I wonder if he'll end up getting Avastin or something on a protocol?
I wonder if he'll end up getting Avastin or something on a protocol?
Don't think you can assume anything. Most places would over-schedule OR time just to be safe. I'm sure w/ Senator Kennedy's case, they would want to schedule the OR with as much time as possible, so just b/c they didn't use the whole time doesn't mean the surgery was a failure.
Not completely sure why they he selected Duke Neurosurgery, but I do know that they are in the forefront for Primary CNS tumor immunotherapy. And at this year's ASCO, Duke neuro-oncology team presented some data showing promising results in using dendritic cell immunomodulation of gliomas.
The word "promising" is something one should avoid using, when talking about GBMs...
On the other hand one can always say:
"I promise you, you wont survive this disease"
folks one topic per thread please. will delete first post which hasnt been taken up on this thread.
Sad, but true. And if you look at most of the clinical trials out there, the new modality is always some new drug, not RT. Although many med oncs think Temodar has done a lot for it.
Med Oncs get thrilled about median OS improvements measured in months and single digit percentages. Doesn't happen with chemo all the time 😀
Such is life when dealing with chemo outside of lymphoma/leukemia/germ cell etc.
