A new strategy to attack aggressive brain cancer shrank tumors in two early tests

This combination of MRI scan images provided by the New England Journal of Medicine in March 2024 shows the progress of a glioblastoma patient who received CAR-T therapy which uses modified versions of T cells from a patient's own immune system. Studies published by the New England Journal of Medicine on Wednesday, March 13, 2024, signals a new strategy to fight glioblastoma by turning immune cells into living drugs that attack the brain cancer.

Glioblastoma, the brain cancer that killed President Joe Biden’s son Beau Biden and longtime Arizona Sen. John McCain, is fast-growing and hard to treat. Patients usually live 12 to 18 months after diagnosis. Despite decades of research, there are few options when it returns after surgery and radiation.

Mass General and Penn each developed two-pronged approaches and tried them in patients whose tumors returned after standard treatment. Penn’s approach was to create “dual-target” CAR-T therapy that hunts for both that EGFR protein plus a second protein found in many glioblastomas.Mass General tested three patients with its CAR-TEAM and brain scans a day or two later showed their tumors rapidly began shrinking, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.Two of the patients' tumors began to regrow soon and a repeat dose given to one of them didn’t work.

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