A man has seen his deadly brain tumour shrink by half thanks to a new radioactive therapy, which experts hope will eradicate the disease.
Doctors at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (UCLH) are running a clinical trial to treat glioblastoma, a type of cancer which kills most patients within 18 months.
Their aim is to cure the disease through injecting low levels of radioactivity directly into the tumour to kill off cancer cells.
Some glioblastoma tumours may respond well to immunotherapy, but there is currently no way to assess this without an invasive brain biopsy – which carries the risk of infection and bleeding.
As a result, biopsies are rarely carried out for glioblastomas prior to surgery to remove the tumour, meaning these patients are missing out on improved treatments.
Now there is hope after researchers developed a new imaging technique which can help spot which patients will benefit from immunotherapy drugs, without the need of a risky biopsy.
Paul Read, a 62-year-old engineer from Luton, is the first patient to take part in the trial and has seen his tumour shrink in half in a matter of weeks.
For the procedure, surgeons removed 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.
The nuclear medicine team at UCLH then inject a drug – ATT001, an Iodine-123 labelled PARP inhibitor – directly into the tumour, delivering small amounts of radioactivity.
The drug, which is given weekly for four to six weeks, is very potent over short distances, causing lethal damage to tumour cells while sparing healthy tissue.
Mr Read, who has recurrent glioblastoma, first noticed a very severe headache last December that would not shift.
Two weeks later, his wife Pauline thought he may have had a stroke because his face looked like it had dropped on one side.
The couple went to A&E at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital, where a scan revealed a large mass on Mr Read’s brain.
He was admitted to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square, London, and told the devastating news he had glioblastoma.
On December 27 last year, Mr Read underwent surgery to remove as much of the tumour as possible, followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
However, in July, doctors told him the sad news that his tumour was growing again.
Mr Read was then offered a place on the new trial at UCLH, having previously agreed to take part in clinical research.
He said: “I was fully expecting the tumour to return due to its aggressive nature. I know the outcome isn’t great and I was happy to explore anything else. This trial was a lifeline, as the likelihood of survival according to the data was a year or less for me.
“I am delighted to be given the opportunity to be part of this trial and I have not experienced any side-effects from the injections.”
“I’m not frightened by any of this. We are all dealt a hand of cards and you don’t know which ones you are going to get. It will be wonderful if this treatment helps me and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t... I have got nothing to lose and everything to hope for.”
A second patient has also just started the therapy.
The trial was designed by UCLH consultant medical oncologist, Dr Paul Mulholland, who is also the chief investigator.
It is sponsored by Ariceum Therapeutics, a private biotech company developing radiopharmaceutical products for hard-to-treat cancers.
Dr Mulholland told the PA news agency the treatment so far has been very straightforward.
He said: “The radioactivity in the drug targets the tumour cells specifically – it’s a tiny amount of radioactivity,” he explained.
“Because it’s targeted directly to the tumour cells, it’s very powerful at killing them. So far, in the first patient, their tumour has reduced by 50 per cent in size.”
“We’ve just gone through his scan results with him and his end of treatment scan shows a reduction in the tumour, which is really quite remarkable for somebody whose tumour is so aggressive.”
Medics are treating one patient a month in the first phase of the trial but will expand it to include more patients.
Dr Mulholland said the dose of radiation will be increased throughout the trial and the plan is then to combine the drug with an immunotherapy – which trains the body’s own immune system to kill cancer – with up to 40 patients treated.
He said: “We have to aim to cure this disease. There’s reasons why we can cure it because this disease occurs in the same location in the brain.”
