Oncology

Brain Diptheria Treatment

There is an exciting new treatment that holds promise for patients stricken with life threatening brain tumors.

The experimental therapy uses a toxin that comes from a dangerous bacteria.

Think about it for a moment: botox, which we use to get rid of wrinkles and migraines, comes from the toxin that causes botulism.

This new treatment also comes from deadly bacterial toxin--the diptheria toxin--which can also paralyze muscles.

But now it’s being used to destroy brain cancer cells.

“Just about a year ago I had a very severe headache, severe enough that I actually went to have it checked out.” Janet Saitta, who’s a nurse, suddenly found out she was a patient with a life-threatening brain tumor called a glioblastoma.

She got standard chemo and radiation therapy, but there was still some tumor left.

So, she decided to enroll in a clinical trial looking at an experimental treatment using diptheria toxin to kill the cancer cells.

Dr. Deborah Benzil, a neurosurgeon at Westchester County Medical Center who is studying the diphtheria toxin, says, “We are putting the diphtheria toxin into the cancer cells that are in the brain, we are doing this by a unique mechanism of linking the diphtheria toxin to something called transferrin. The tumor cells in the brain have things on there surface which link to the transferrin that then brings the diphtheria toxin into the cells and then kills them.”

The toxin is directed right at--and only at--the cancer cells, avoiding healthy cells in the body.

“So the side effects are really quite minimal, most of the patients have few or no side effects with delivering the treatment,” says Dr. Benzil.

Janet comments, “I feel like any time you can go direct to the cancer you are ahead of the game.”

To be ahead in this game is a big goal. Dr. Benzil says the most malignant brain tumors have an average survival of only eighteen months despite very aggressive treament, which typically has difficult to tolerate side effects.

“The vision of this trial is that we will significantly improve the quality of life for patients who have brain tumors and also extend their survival, something that has been very challenging for us as neurosurgeons for the last five decades,” Dr. Benzil states.

In the early phases of this trial, about forty percent of patients have had a dramatic response.

“The tumors size was reduced significantly and the patients survival rate was considerably longer, I think the longest survival rate right now is about five years,” Dr. Benzil adds.

Janet is banking on a similar result. “We hope that it will get rid of what was left of the tumor,” she says.

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