Current Statistics on Brain Cancer
What is Glioblastoma?
Glioblastoma is the most common primary malignant brain tumor in adults and is a challenging disease to treat. About 50,000 primary brain tumors are diagnosed in the United States each year, 36% of which are gliomas. Of these, half are glioblastoma (GBM). Glioblastoma is the most aggressive form of brain cancer and, despite some recent advances, continues to have a grim prognosis with median overall survival rate of just 14.5 months from time of diagnosis. The current standard of care for GBM begins with maximal safe surgical resection then a combination of radiotherapy with oral chemotherapy. Despite treatment, recurrence usually happens within a year, and so we continue to search for more effective treatments both for initial therapy and at the time of recurrence.
As noted above, with our current standard of care patients are expected to live an average of 15 months. And that is it! Additionally, while radiation and chemotherapy prolong life, they greatly reduce quality of life—so much so, in fact, that some patients opt out of treatment all together. At present, the fact is that whatever longevity these patients gain is balanced out with a loss in quality of life to some extent. Despite ongoing research, this remains the best available treatment. We can do better!
Please join us to support more research to improve the current standard of care by providing better therapies that attack each patient’s tumor unique growth preventing it from ever coming back.
Let’s work together to transform glioblastoma into a manageable disease in our life time!
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/799492
