IN THE NEWS Campbell Lecturer Details New Directions in Brain Cancer Treatment December 20, 2018 | Goodman Campbell | Brain Health, Events
Dr. Linda Liau Marking the 25th anniversary of the annual Robert L. Campbell Lectureship, invited lecturer Linda Liau, MD, PhD, provided a window into her ongoing research to treat malignant brain tumors including glioblastoma— the most common type of brain cancer in adults.
In an address titled, “Brain Tumor Immunotherapy: Lessons Learned and New Directions,” Dr. Liau first expressed gratitude for being the first woman to be selected as a Campbell Lecturer at the December 5 event held at IU’s Goodman Hall Auditorium.
“While 20 immunotherapy drugs have gained FDA approval since 2015 to treat other cancers including melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma, Hodgkins lymphoma, and cancer of the bladder and liver, no drugs for glioblastoma have had similar approval,” Liau explained.
“One of the frustrations in our work is that you can never get every cancer cell of a glioblastoma, even through radiation and chemotherapy, so the idea that your immune system can attack and remove the cancer cell is quite intriguing.”
Liau also described one of the main challenges is measuring whether an immunotherapy drug is working against a glioblastoma tumor. After injections of these drugs, a tumor may enlarge (“pseudoprogression”) for possibly 6 months before it gets smaller. Therefore, standard imaging techniques, such as MRI, to assess whether tumors are growing or shrinking in response to treatment are not as sufficient in brain cancer.
Dr. Liau and her research team at UCLA have been investigating a dendritic cell vaccine known as DCVax-L® that is currently in a Phase III clinical trial of newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients. The international, multi-centered study is being conducted at 80 sites in the US (including IU), Canada, and Europe with 331 enrolled patients. Of the 331 patients, 90% were treated with DCVax-L at some point. Results have shown median overall survival of 23.1 months and 28.2% patient survival at 3 years.
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