Designing Immunotherapy Clinical Trials for Glioblastoma Management
8/10/2016
file.scirp.org/pdf/JCT_2016081015263231.pdf
CONCLUSION:
The research in and development of new and more effective GBM therapeutics is ever evolving. GBM clinical trials should follow this advancement as well and incorporate different aspects from the patient selection to the derivation of primary endpoints in order to address the individualization of GBM patients and the unique nature of GBM neoplasms. In a variety of cancers, it has been shown that pseudoprogression on imaging and numerous
biomarkers have the potential to allow clinicians and scientists to monitor oncology patients’ prognosis and response to different types of therapy. Additionally, the intestinal microbiome appears to have exciting promise to modify and enhance the very efficacy of cancer therapeutics, including most notably immunotherapeutics, themselves. Consideration of all parameters together is a potent way to develop effective GBM and cancer treatments further. For example, Linhares
et al. found that updated RANO criteria described pseudoprogression in more predictable terms in their study group and suggested that radiological, not only biological, biomarkers
could be identified in the future to follow disease progression and treatment efficacy. Many nuances are left to be examined in these prognostic and treatmentresponse aspects as applicable to different cancers, previously studied already or not. GBM management, in particular, has been under intense interest due to the disease’s relentless and devastating nature, and future clinical trials could certainly benefit from studying these markers MGMT methylation, PsP on imaging, circulating and genetic mutation biomarkers, and species of micro-organisms of patient selection, clinical outcome, and treatment response.
