Of the more than 120 types of brain tumors that affect humans, glioblastomas are undoubtedly one of the deadliest. This is a type of cancer that originates from the spinal cord or brain cells before swiftly infiltrating and destroying healthy tissues.
Glioblastoma patients have an average life expectancy of 14 to 16 months after diagnosis, and only 1% of them manage to live for at least 10 years after receiving their diagnosis.
Given the extremely deadly nature of the condition, researchers have spent decades working on better and more efficient ways to diagnose, treat the condition and prevent glioblastomas from regrowing after treatment. A new experimental vaccine currently being studied at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center may be able to increase the life expectancy of glioblastoma patients.
Developed by New York-based pharmaceutical company MimiVax, SurVaxM exhibited positive results in preliminary studies, managing to increase the survival time of brain cancer patients by an average of 26 months. With conditions such as glioblastoma known to have an extremely low survival rate, extending survival time by more than two years is a huge win.
The report noted that 61-year-old New York resident John Wisham is one of the first people to benefit from the experimental SurVaxM drug. After being diagnosed with glioblastoma in the fall of 2020, Wisham has outlived the average 12 to 18 months survival time and is still enjoying life two and a half years after receiving his diagnosis. Wisham states that the vaccine was able to extend his survival time by slowing down the progression of the brain tumor.
Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering Honggang Cui compares glioblastomas to “octopus tentacles reaching into the brain.” They are extremely aggressive and tend to have proliferated into the spinal cord and other parts of the brain by the time they are diagnosed.
SurVaxM works by targeting a tumor protein called survivin, which is thought to play a critical role in the survival and longevity of cancer cells, and teaching the immune system to target and destroy cancer cells.
MimiVax is now enrolling participants for a larger clinical trial to confirm the results it received in the initial clinical study on the efficacy of SurVaxM in brain cancer treatment. This extended clinical study will involve up to 270 brain cancer patients and will likely take place in more than 10 locations in both the United States and China.
Following the trial, the research team running the study will compare results from patients who took SurVaxM with those who underwent regular treatment.
This research team isn’t the only one focusing its attention on brain tumors. Enterprises such as CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are also pouring research dollars into developing better therapeutics for patients afflicted by different forms of brain cancer so that their clinical outcomes can be improved.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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