There could be another way to identify brain tumour sufferers, as researchers have found a language test could help GPs determine whether people with common symptoms, such as headaches, might, in fact, have something far more sinister. 

The Brain Tumour Charity funded a study of 270 people, which tested those with brain tumours and those with headaches who did not have brain tumours. 

The findings showed that those with brain tumours had significantly lower ‘verbal fluency task’ than the control group. 

The first symptom of a brain tumour is often a headache. However, for every 1,000 people who go to the GP with a headache, just a couple will have a tumour. Therefore, this could be a helpful triage test to help identify who would be in urgent need of a brain scan or not.

According to the study, published in BMC Neuroscience, 87.5 per cent of those who had a poor score in the test, which involves naming as many animals as possible in a minute, had a brain tumour. 

It also revealed almost half (48.1 per cent) of those with a good score did not have a brain tumour. 

In conclusion, people who got a score of 14 or above were nearly eight times more likely to be brain tumour-free. On the other hand, a poor rating increased the likelihood of a brain tumour by more than three times. 

Ben Wilson is one such patient who went to see his GP when he was having severe headaches and dizzy spells. He said he only booked an appointment as he was furloughed from his job as an area manager for a brewery in 2020 and had more time on his hands. 

The 34-year-old was subsequently diagnosed with a low-grade Pilocytic Astrocytoma and underwent treatment just seven days after the initial GP appointment. Find out more about Gamma Knife Surgery in the UK for brain tumour recovery.

Amethyst UK, first to use new frame to transform patient experience at its London treatment centre Queen Square Radiotherapy Centre.

Read the full article from htworld.co.uk here.

June 28, 2022

To some people with brain tumours, the idea of undergoing a gamma knife procedure may sound very novel and scary. But in fact the procedure is so well established that people have had having their lives transformed for many years.

Speaking to the Richmond-Times Dispatch in the US, Tina Holloway, a patient who had been diagnosed with a stage 4 metastatic melanoma in 2015 – by which point the cancer had also spread to her breasts, abdomen, legs and pelvis as well as her brain – explained her story.

The prognosis looked terminal, with doctors giving her six months to live, but Gamma Knife surgery saved her life. After three hours of surgery, she was sent home and within 30 days she was declared in remission. “It’s scary when you’re told you have six months to live,” Ms Holloman said, “and here I am in 2022.”

Private radiotherapy centres in the UK like ours have been using Gamma Knife surgery for years. The fact that the procedure has been used so often, for so long and with so much success should be seen as highly encouraging to anyone needing treatment.

There should be no surprise that this extraordinary technology should be seeing more and more use. Indeed, the latest research has revealed that the technique continues to grow in use all over the world and will go on doing so.

A market research study by Future Market Insights titled ‘Gamma Knife Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2015-2025’ has predicted that there will be ongoing rapid growth in the use of the technology.

It predicted the market will see compound annual growth of 5.90 per cent between 2021 and 2031, taking its global value from US$287.3 million to US$507 million, with North America being the leading regional market, the Asia-Pacific region second and Europe third.

The UK will be a part of Europe’s growth, although the prediction is for Germany to be the leading user of Gamma Knife surgery in Europe with a 20 per cent share of procedures.

Dealing with brain metastasis will be the most common use of the technique, although others will include conditions such as arteriovenous malformation and trigeminal neuralgia.

Behind these numbers lie thousands of real-life stories of patents for whom it seemed all hope was lost and who, without Gamma Knife surgery, the rest of their lives would have been very short. Not only is the hugely treatment effective, but it is painless, people can go straight home afterwards without a long convalescence, and there is none of the physical scarring involved in invasive surgery.

For so many the reality is now very different as they live cancer free lives way beyond their diagnoses and often with many more years ahead of them.

May 18, 2022

The world’s best specialised hospitals for 2022 have been ranked by Newsweek, in partnership with global research firm Statista – and the Queen Square Gamma Knife centre has been named as the third best for specialist treatment (neurology) in the world.

The best facilities across six specialities were reviewed in 2021 – cardiology, neurology, oncology, endocrinology, gastroenterology and orthopaedics.

But for 2022, the list was expanded to ten specialities, with the ranking now featuring the top 250 hospitals in oncology and cardiology, the top 150 for cardiac surgery and paediatrics, and the top 125 in neurology, neurosurgery, gastroenterology, orthopaedics and pulmonology.

The list itself is based on a global survey of medical professionals, with scores based on primary and secondary recommendations. More than 40,000 medical experts were invited to take the online survey in over 20 countries, asked to recommend and rank hospitals based on expertise in one primary medical field.

The Queen Square Radiosurgery Centre is a leading internationally recognised clinical centre of excellence. It was established in 2021 and went on to join the Amethyst Group in 2020.

It can be found within the University College London Hospitals’ National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square in London. It is, in fact, the oldest neurosciences hospital in the world.

Clinical director Neil Kitchen commented on the news, saying: “The Queen Square Gamma Knife centre has been at the cutting edge of neurosurgery treatment for the past ten years.”

Together with the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, the Queen Square site forms a major centre of excellence for teaching, training and research in neuroscience. In all, four of the world’s top 12 most cited authors in neurosciences and behaviour are now based at Queen’s Square.

May 12, 2022

CNS Pharameceuticals has received the go-ahead from regulators in Spain to conduct a trial for a new drug called Berubicin, which is designed to treat recurrent glioblastoma multiforme. The news follows similar regulatory approval in France and Switzerland.

The trials will see some patients given the drug while others receive the existing chemotherapy treatment Lomustine.

Commenting on the development, CNS Pharmaceuticals CEO John Climaco said: “We continue to build momentum in our potentially pivotal study of Berubicin, and importantly advance toward bringing a much needed treatment option to patients.” He added his thanks to the Spanish drug authority AEMPS and ethics committee CElm Provincial de Sevilla for approving the trial.

Should the study prove successful, it could bring nearer the day when the drug might be added to the existing list of treatments available for glioblastoma.

At present, gamma knife radiosurgery remains one of the most effective treatments for brain tumours, particularly due to its non-invasive nature and absence of recovery time.

Indeed, it is worth noting that even if Berubicin does prove to be effective, this form of radiosurgery will still be a very effective and important option.

Moreover, it is important to note that Berubicin will still need to go through not just the trials, but also peer review and then seek regulatory approval before it can be made available in Austria and elsewhere. This process may take some years. Besides all this, it is far from certain at this early stage whether the treatment will prove to make a significant difference.

The quest to find new treatments that might help fight glioblastoma and other tumours has also focused on possible treatments such as Paxalisib.

Kazia Therapeutics, which produces Paxalisib, recently announced it had completed the second phase of trials and will shortly be presenting the results.

Chief executive officer of the company Dr James Garner said: “This study has greatly expanded our understanding of paxalisib, and the insights it has provided have informed all our subsequent work with the drug.”

A key finding of the trial was that it appeared to be very effective in achieving longer survival times among patients whose genetic profile made them resistant to Temozolomide, the only drug currently approved in the US for glioblastoma.

It found that the average survival time for the intent-to-treat population was 15.7 months, compared with 12.7 months for Temozolomide, while median progression-free survival was also higher, at 8.4 months to 5.3 months.

Final data from this stage of the research is expected to emerge next year, which may inform further research ahead of the third stage of trials. Further research is planned in Europe and China.

While this may be good news and Berubicin may provide more, this will not diminish the potential value of gamma knife treatments. Indeed, it may be a combination of the drugs and this form of radiosurgery could turn out to bring the best results in the future.